2012:8 - A President for Egypt

Around 4:30 p.m. local time today, a presidential election commission announced that Mohamed Morsy has been elected President of Egypt. Reporters talked about the thousands of people streaming into Tahrir Square to join those already gathered. I have no doubt that’s true. But in Ma’adi where I live, about 30 minutes south of Tahrir by Metro, there has been some celebratory honking of horns, but other than that the immediate response has been quiet. Perhaps when people arrive home from work tonight and the sun goes down (and hopefully the temperature too) the celebration will begin for at least some.

Many of my students were certain that Shafiq would be named president. Of those who voted, I think most voted for Shafiq as well. Their responses will be interesting in the coming days.

What was most striking to me, as I watched bits and pieces of the press conference on live feed through Al Jazeera English, was the methodical way in which the election commission painstakingly went through many of the vote challenges that each side had made against the other. In every instance that I heard, the commission representative identified the challenge that was raised, then highlighted the action that was taken and finally announced how the vote had changed as a result of the challenge and response. It seemed as methodical as it was sleep-inducing.

But in a country and a culture that is known more for a chaotic, make-it-work approach to life, this methodical, systematic approach to identifying vote totals seems noteworthy. The skeptic in me says all the attention paid to exact vote totals is simply a cover for the backroom deals that have been in negotiation since the election (or even before) to name the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate as president. But the optimist in me says that maybe we really just witnessed Egypt getting a lesson in the democratic process – the person with more votes wins, even when we don’t like the candidate and even when we’re worried about what the candidate will mean for our country and our way of life.

The horns are increasing on the nearby streets though I suspect the mood at dinner tonight will be somber. That will be a lesson in the democratic process as well – not everyone ends up happy in the end.

In any event I’m blessed to be here to witness history in the making. The civilization known for pharaohs and the intrigues of pharonic succession has elected a president. I continue to pray that the effects of this day will bring this country the peace, justice, security AND hope for which all her children are longing.