The triumph of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi over secular challenger Ahmed Shafik, the last Prime Minister under ousted President Hosni Mubarak, caused no surprise on Sunday although the victory margin was very slim.
Nevertheless, the historic nature of the win can hardly be underestimated. Given Egypt’s size, historical importance and cultural and political pre-eminence in the Arabic-speaking world, it is not unlikely that an Islamist democracy advocated by the Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood’s political wing that Mr Morsi led to a signal victory, can potentially become a model for West Asia and North Africa.
Mr Morsi’s win in an election widely seen as free and fair suggests that the 84-year-old Islamist group — which began as a secret outfit, often resorted to violence and was continually suppressed and driven underground — remains Egypt’s most influential party, drawing its support from all corners of society.
It was caught unawares by the bursting on the scene of the 17-day Tahrir Square movement in February 2011, led by Egypt’s young, pro-West liberals who were seen as zealots of the so-called Arab Spring that overthrew the Mubarak dictatorship, but it quickly recovered to take charge of anti-military protests in the country since then. The Brotherhood also swept the recent elections to Egypt’s Parliament, only to see it dissolved under a Supreme Court order at the powerful military’s behest. The military has also moved quickly to strip the office of the country’s first civilian President of key powers, and has assumed the right to make laws under an interim Constitution. The new President and his party are certain to wage a long political struggle against the entrenched military. Its outcome should have significance for the entire Arab world and Islamic society in general.
The win of the Islamists, whose offshoot Hamas rules in Gaza (also having got there through an election), cannot but be bad news for Israel, which has operated a peace agreement with Egypt’s military rulers since the days of Anwar Sadat, and whose political position has defined the conflict in the region for 60 years. Even so, Mr Morsi’s party has promised to respect all international agreements and ensure equal treatment for Coptic Christians, who are thought to be around 10 per cent of the country’s population. Egypt’s Islamists can reassure their ideological opponents if they can actually put into place the moderated version of their credo when given power through the ballot. We are on the cusp of a new age in West Asia and North Africa, whose oil is a leading currency of international politics.