The key issue facing the new president is determining what power he will wield. Prior to Morsi's election, the SCAF issued a decree that severely limits the powers of the president until a new constitution has been drafted. According to the decree, the president cannot declare war without SCAF approval. In addition, the president will have to request military intervention in the event of an internal security crisis — again, the SCAF will have vast decision-making authority. Last, SCAF leader Gen. Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, not the president, will appoint the defense minister and serve as the military's commander-in-chief.
The Turkish Model
In light of the SCAF's continued power, the MB likely will behave pragmatically moving forward. In fact, the MB will avoid confrontation with the military now more than ever because it has finally secured a place in the political system. Rather than risk its recent political gains by clashing with the most powerful entity in Egyptian politics, the MB will try to expand its authority gradually.
However, the MB cannot afford to be seen as a tool of the military; such a perception would completely undermine the social and political capital the Islamist movement has accrued over the past eight decades. The group has been criticized for bargaining with the military since Hosni Mubarak's ouster in February 2011. Already many within Egypt see the MB's ascension to the presidency as a result of a compromise between the MB and the SCAF.
To allay these concerns, the MB has to make the case, especially to those who participated in the democratic uprising, that its approach of working with the system is yielding positive results. To do so, the MB must demonstrate that the newly elected president actually has substantive policymaking authority. Getting that authority requires bargaining with the SCAF.
For its part, the SCAF understands it needs to transfer some degree of power to Morsi — in fact, it wants to — for several reasons. First, the military wants to rid itself of the responsibilities of governance; it would rather rule from behind the scenes. Moreover, the SCAF wants to step away from the public eye so it can focus on drafting a new constitution. In addition, ensnaring the MB in the throes of governance is an effective way to taint an otherwise unblemished reputation. Last, the SCAF can use an MB presidency to sustain divisions among the country's many political forces.
But granting the MB political power is risky, given the fractious state of Egyptian and regional politics. The SCAF is well aware that the MB is emulating the AKP's model of governance, which eventually weakens the military's hold over power.
The process by which the AKP supplanted the military took many years. Every Islamist party in Turkey since the 1970s has been disbanded by the judiciary. The Islamists' eventual successor party, the AKP even had to defend itself against the judiciary after it came to power in 2002. For years thereafter, the party had to navigate Turkey's Kemalist establishment, which includes the military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the bureaucracy, media, the business community and civil society, before it gained supremacy over the military. What primarily enabled the AKP to subvert the military was its ability to improve economic conditions after the 2001 financial crisis and creating a new business and internal security elite.
The SCAF can take comfort in the fact that there is a huge difference between the Turkish and Egyptian situations. Whereas Egypt until recently was ruled by a single-party regime dominated by the military, Turkey has experimented with democracy for decades. Moreover, Egyptian Islamism is much more conservative than Turkish Islamism, and secularism in Egypt has not yet found its way to the masses. And while the MB has a strong presence in Egyptian civil society, many years will pass before the group can leverage that presence into state institutions. Notably, the Egyptian economy will need to be restructured massively before it can allow the MB electoral benefits. Indeed, the MB could spend decades trying to recreate the success of the AKP.
The Pakistani Model
As the MB mimics the AKP, Egypt's military council will try to avoid the situations that Turkey's general staff has encountered in recent years. Consequently, the SCAF likely will use a tactic similar to that of the Pakistani military, which for decades has used various state entities to curb the power of elected governments.
While Pakistan has a far more vibrant democratic culture than Egypt, Islamabad's military has been able to make use of the weakness and incoherence of civilian institutions — the presidency, the parliament and the judiciary — to rein in rival political forces. Using the state's intelligence services, the army also has pitted different parties against one another. The military's strength in the government has waned somewhat in recent years, but the army is still able to contain civilians.
Already the SCAF has exhibited this kind of behavior, as evidenced by its dissolution of parliament, its pitting Islamists against secularists and its exploiting divisions among rival Islamists. Consequently, the MB will improve its relations with political competitors, especially its anti-Islamist rivals, to deny the SCAF the leverage it currently has — hence Morsi's appointing a Copt and a woman as his vice presidents.
Furthermore, Morsi will likely give a Cabinet post to all of Egypt's major political forces to counteract SCAF demands to appoint technocrats to key ministries. In fact, a secular opposition figure will probably be named prime minister. Of course, the MB would prefer its own people in the Cabinet. This explains recent statements from MB spokesmen about the movement's being in negotiations with the SCAF over the balance of power within the Cabinet.
Given the negotiations, a finalized Cabinet is not expected in the near future. And it will take some time before all sides are ready to focus on the country's most pressing issue: drafting the constitution. The status of the constituent assembly is still unclear, and the MB and SCAF are reportedly in negotiations on this issue. How the SCAF will oversee the process of drafting the new constitution remains opaque.
In any case, a constitution that achieves a national consensus requires several things. The country needs to hold fresh parliamentary elections, which could take place after the constitution is finalized. The new document likely will include institutional and procedural mechanisms through which the military will retain control over the emerging multiparty political system once the SCAF is dissolved as a ruling junta.
Clearly the SCAF has accepted an Islamist presence in the government, but it has done so on its own terms. The council threatened to deny the MB its electoral victory — a threat the council can still honor. Therefore, the MB will be making the greater concession as the SCAF determines how the political transition can keep the Islamists and civilians in check while preserving the military's influence overall.
