Alarming drift in Egypt

When the Egyptian generals defenestrated the tyrant Hosni Mubarak in February, they announced they would step down within six months, after parliamentary and presidential elections had been held. This was, perhaps, an unrealistic schedule: you cannot liquidate a 30-year dictatorship overnight, and set up a minimally credible democracy. But in view of recent events in the most populous and influential of Arab countries ? and in spite of repeated statements by its members ? everything suggests that the Military Junta is going to renege on that initial promise, which reflected the aspirations of the street, as the generals appear to be settling comfortably into power, and are using methods that are ominously reminiscent of times past.

One example are the recent riots in Cairo, with a death toll of almost 30 people in a brutal attack by the army on a protest by Coptic Christians against the burning of one of their churches, in the south, by Muslim fanatics. Like Mubarak, the generals have permitted a massacre that could be seen coming; as a result of which their finance minister has resigned. Like Mubarak, they promise to punish (but do not) the extremists who foment sectarian violence. Other alarming signs confirm the drift of the military Junta: once again bringing civilians before military courts; reviving the emergency legislation that justified the excesses of the deposed dictator.

The new electoral agenda set by the Junta expresses this same stagnation of democracy. The voting for the two Chambers is to be held on a staggered schedule between November of this year and March of the next. A committee of notables will then write up a new Constitution, which will have to be ratified in referendum before presidential elections are held, presumably at the end of next year. The lengthy process, which the political parties are demanding be accelerated, might keep the army at the helm until well into 2013.

The worst temptation to which the Egyptian generals might succumb, accustomed as they are to every sort of perquisite, is that of becoming settled in a seat of power that does not belong to them. Egypt, being as it is a model for the Arab world, needs a rapid, exemplary transition. The progress made in the last eight months must be consolidated with a simple, reasonable political calendar. The Junta has to dispel the growing perception among the Egyptians that it is not going to content itself with mere thanks for the services rendered.