Egypt’s ambassador to the United States sought to assuage fears on Wednesday that the country’s military is seeking to resume control indefinitely, pointing to an upcoming constitutional referendum and elections as crucial to a democratic future.
Ambassador Mohamed Tawfik said a 50-member assembly is still discussing reforms to Egypt’s constitution in preparation for a referendum before the end of the year. Elections for the parliament and president will be "forthcoming" after that, he said.
The constitutional debates have been a contentious affair, with members arguing over provisions that would enshrine "principles of [sharia law]," and permit the military to name the defense minister and try civilians at its own tribunals. The "roadmap" for constitutional reform and elections was set in motion in July after the military ousted former president and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, who was widely condemned for his authoritarian rule.
"Whatever government comes in place must consider itself not to be a government for those elected but a government for the whole population—that is the main failure of Morsi," Tawfik said at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
"We certainly should not repeat today or over the coming years the mistakes that Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood made," he said. "We should come together."
However, analysts have questioned the extent to which the military is willing to loosen its grip on power and embrace a more inclusive democracy. They note that hundreds have been killed in clashes between the police and protesters, mostly Islamist supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood but also security forces.
Morsi supporters have planned more protests on Friday after the military lifts a nightly curfew, which Tawfik said the military can "maintain law and order" without.
Tawfik also said that the Muslim Brotherhood was invited to participate in the constitutional panel but declined, unlike other Islamist parties. Any political party is welcome to participate as long as they do not form "secret" organizations or militias like the Muslim Brotherhood, he said.
"The important thing is to put together an inclusive process that allows groups to join," he said. "Whether they choose to join is up to them."
Elliott Abrams, former top National Security Council official and currently a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an interview that most Americans should support the army-backed government’s requirements for more transparent political parties. The Muslim Brotherhood’s financial sources and foreign support were opaque, he said.
"That’s fair—those are democratic rules and the Brotherhood never played by those rules in its internal organization," he said.
Yet he said continued repression by the military is a cause for concern.
"The problem is whether they’re going to permit liberal democrats, secular Egyptians, to engage in politics equally," he said. " During the Morsi period, the answer was clearly no."
"Everybody was hoping the army would support a more democratic system," he said.
The military drew the ire of human rights groups when it raided the offices of 17 Egyptian and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in 2011, claiming that they were investigating foreign sources of funding. Many of the organizations said the raids were worse than anything they experienced under the 30-year rule of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Tawfik said the interim government is working with a panel of NGOs to develop a new law to govern them and eliminate "gray areas."
Not all analysts are convinced.
"The current environment in Egypt is not at all encouraging—most leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood remain in jail, and criticism of the military has not been tolerated, whether by Islamists, liberals, or otherwise," said Stephen McInerney, executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy, in an email. "Furthermore, the state-controlled media continues to play a dangerous role, fueling xenophobia and viciously attacking any dissenting voices."
"Unfortunately, the current trajectory is simply not in the direction of a free or democratic Egypt."
Reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Cairo later this month to announce arms sales have raised further concerns that Egypt might be seeking to replace the United States with Russia as its main military patron. The potential shift is viewed as a response to the U.S. decision to cut off some arms transfers and forms of aid in a push to encourage Egypt to quickly move toward a democracy.
Tawfik downplayed the purported rebalance toward the Kremlin but said there is "room for improvement" in its cooperation with Russia. Egypt will not go back to the "Cold War mentality" but is an "unaligned country," he said.
"We have different partnerships," he said. "We would like to continue our partnership with the U.S. That does not mean we can not have partnerships with other countries."