For President-elect Morsi, colossal challenges lay ahead

After the confetti is swept away from Tahrir Square where thousands of Egyptians celebrated the victory of Mohammed Morsi Sunday evening, the new Egyptian president will face a grim and divided country in dire need of repair.

“The revolution is still in the country!” chanted Muslim Brotherhood members in a press conference following the official announcement. The Freedom and Justice Party’s Facebook page still reads “the revolution continues.” It will take time for the Brotherhood to assume its leadership role after 84 years in Egypt’s opposition.

The military dispersed the democratically elected parliament and the constitutional assembly formed by it, taking on legislative powers. Who’s to say it won’t do the same for the president?

The first challenge will be in pacifying the 48.3% of the Egyptian electorate who voted for Morsi’s opponent, Ahmed Shafiq. Although the Shafiq camp – backed by the ruling military establishment – will be hard pressed to claim election fraud, the close result highlights the deep rift in Egyptian society, almost down the middle, between those who yearn for the stability and personal security of old and those who demand change, at any price.

Morsi will have to work hard to abate the fears of Egypt’s Islamo-skeptics, and they are many. Just months ago the Brotherhood promised not to nominate its own candidate, fearing the backlash of a public suspicious of the perennial Islamic opposition, an opposition which had plotted assassination attempts in the 50s, and whose extremist disciples carried one out against President Anwar Sadat in 1981.

The second challenge will be regulating the relationship with the powerful military establishment. Last week, with the stroke of a constitutional declaration, the military dispersed the democratically elected parliament and the constitutional assembly formed by it, taking on legislative powers. Who’s to say it won’t do the same for the president? SCAF, the ruling military council, has so far remained eerily silent.

Following the constitutional declaration, which the Brotherhood dubbed illegal, it is unclear whether President-elect Morsi will pledge his allegiance to the High Constitutional court – recognizing the legitimacy of the military decision – or whether he will refuse to do so. The latter decision would put the Brotherhood on a collision course with the military, the result of which is impossible to predict.

“Rest in your grave, Hassan Al-Bana,” said one pro-Brotherhood commentator on Egyptian TV, referring to the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. “The path you have begun has come to fruition.”

The Brotherhood, for its part, is  demanding to restore the elected parliament, dominated by Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood and the more radical Nour party. It has also demanded the annulment of the constitutional declaration and the reestablishment of the constitutional assembly. Now the ball is in the court of the military.

Finally, President-elect Morsi will have to repair Egypt’s dismal economic state. Battered by a year and a half of political instability, Egypt’s tourism industry has crashed and foreign investments in the country have plumeted.

As analyst Mohammed Samhouri points out, since January 2011, Egypt has consumed over 60% of its foreign reserves in a frantic attempt to pay the salaries of some 6 million state employees and continue subsidizing energy and basic foodstuffs. The immediate challenge for Morsi will be to return stability so Egypt as soon as possible and negotiate a loan from the International Monetary Fund and the G-8 donor states. These funds will only be guaranteed, however, in return for sweeping reform in Egypt’s governance and economic system.

All these issued not withstanding, Morsi is off to a good start. Just two hours after being officially declared as Egypt’s first democratically elected president, he had a Facebook page up and running, titled “President Muhammad Morsi – the official page.”

“Rest in your grave, Hassan Al-Banna,” said one pro-Brotherhood commentator on Egyptian TV, referring to the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. “The path you have begun has come to fruition.”