The guts and determination behind the protests that ended Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule have been replaced by euphoria and a sense of achievement. All but a straggle of demonstrators have gone home, their objectives having been attained quicker than could have been imagined when they began taking to the streets on January 25. The gains in the days since are impressive. A hated leader has slunk quietly away, replaced by a palatable military that has dissolved a feeble and corrupt parliament, suspended the constitution and promised free and fair elections in six months under amended rules. There has been a revolution to be sure and autocratic governments in the Middle East and elsewhere have a right to be worried, but with the authoritarian system still intact, victory cannot yet be declared.
Amid the celebrations, that is easy to forget. A battle has been hard fought and won. About 300 lives were lost and there are heroes. Concessions unimaginable when the protests dawned have been gained. There is even a chance that Mubarak and his cronies will be investigated and the billions of dollars they siphoned off recovered. The military has largely delivered what the protesters wanted. It earned trust by not breaking up demonstrations. A time frame for democracy has been given, providing a target to work towards. They are welcome developments, but in light of the questions that remain, a healthy measure of scepticism is necessary.
Mubarak's replacement, the chief of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, does not have democratic credentials. Nor is he a fresh political face, having been a close associate of Mubarak's, for 20 years Egypt's defence minister and in a cabinet shake-up on January 29 aimed at appeasing protesters, deputy prime minister. He is the country's fourth ruler since 1952, when the military ousted a king to seize power. All leaders have been military officers and autocrats.
Democracy has been promised, but the country has few democratic institutions. Putting what is needed in place will take effort, resolve and time. To believe that this will be possible in half a year is overly optimistic. The government has suppressed pro-democracy groups and opposition parties, banning the best known, the Muslim Brotherhood, and jailing supporters and members. There is no independent judiciary, the media does not have freedom, electoral rules do not exist and emergency laws that still have not been repealed prevent assembly and free speech.
If the military is genuine about its role as a democratic harbinger, scrapping the decree has to be next. To ensure that democracy can properly take root, the constitution has to be torn up rather than amended and a representative cross-section of society assembled to draw up a new one to be put to a referendum. The media has to be allowed free rein to report, investigate and criticise. There has to be utmost transparency and openness of the governing process.
Egypt is a reminder that absent accountability and a mechanism for airing grievances can easily lead to tensions that simmer and then boil. Tunisia's ousted president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali found that out before Mubarak, and the autocratic leaders of Algeria, Bahrain, Iran and Yemen are now grappling with increasingly violent protests against their iron-fisted rule. Demonstrations for democracy are getting ever-heated and spreading. No government, China's included, should believe itself immune from a grass-roots desire for more accountability. The voice of the people has to be allowed to flourish and be listened to.
