June 14, 2013
During Morsi’s first hundred days in office, Baseera
conducted three opinion polls on presidential job approval ratings, in which Morsi
enjoyed high approval. Seventy-eight percent of respondents approve of his
performance, while only 15 percent disapprove. Seven percent weren’t sure. But
since then, his ratings have dropped significantly.
Many of those who oppose Islamists, along with some
political analysts, viewed the percentage as significantly elevated, especially
when taking into account that Morsi won with only 52 percent in the
presidential elections.
In one of the final opinion polls at the end of the first
hundred days, respondents were asked a hypothetical question as to whether they
would re-elect the president. The results showed that 58 percent said they
would re-elect him, while 18 percent said they wouldn’t. Twenty-four percent
said either they were unsure or that their decision depended on the other
candidates. At that time, the 58 percent who approved of him is higher than the
percentage of votes he won during in the presidential polls.
The gap between the people who voted for Morsi and those
who are satisfied with his performance after the first hundred days could be
explained as follows: Egyptians were
satisfied with Morsi adoption of new approaches in Egypt’s foreign policy,
reflected in a series of trips abroad. These approaches were also reflected in
some of the president’s sentimental statements that brought to mind a pivotal
regional role for Egypt.
As for the sudden changes he had made within the
commanders of the armed forces at a time when the army’s image was suffering
badly, such a move appeased a wide range of Egyptians. Some see a similarity
between Morsi’s move to sack top army leaders on August 12, 2012, and what
former President Anwar Sadat did in his Corrective Revolution on May 15, 1971,
when he sacked top Nasserist figures from the regime.
Moreover, wide swaths of Egyptians who favor President
Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood thought the Egyptian president had the right
to enjoy a honeymoon or grace period before holding him accountable.
Polling from the next hundred days, in contrast,
demonstrates that the key juncture in the president’s popularity curve occurred
after he issued his controversial constitutional declaration of November 22, in
which he shielded his decisions from judicial review, causing sharp
polarization and effectively dividing Egyptian society into two factions.
At that time, five months after Morsi took office,
approval ratings dropped significantly to 57 percent—21 percentage points down
from the his rating he at the end of the first hundred days. Later, approval
ratings increased to 63 percent after he backtracked on some of the provisions
in his controversial constitutional declaration. Egyptians sighed with relief
after this move, though it partially repaired the damage caused by the
declaration.
Furthermore, with such a divided scene, even some of the
opinion polls that tackled non-political issues were also politically
polarized. Among these survery was the poll that was conducted to show the
attitudes of Egyptians over Egypt getting the $4.8 billion IMF loan.
Results were quite surprising, since they showed an
overwhelming approval rating towards the loan from Morsi’s supporters. Such a
position reflects the predominance of political commitment of the president’s
supporters over the claims that the loan was kind of usury, prohibited by Sharia, as the same supporters had
claimed in the past.
Similarly, the opposition refused the loan, a stance that
is engulfed with a spirit of hostility against Morsi rather than judging the
loan fairly (or logically).
Many have warned that such an exasperating, polarized
political situation would hinder the achievement of any minimum consensus, not
only for major political issues such as the constitution and parliamentary
elections, but also towards issues such as economic policies, the application
of principles of social justice, governance building and the reformation of the
educational system, in which differences are not that severe, , for example, compared
with issues of drafting the constitution.
Egypt has entered the third hundred days in which the
country was severely split between attempts by the ruling majority to impose a
fait accompli, without paying attention to the growing popular discontent in
the street. Meanwhile the opposition is maneuvering in an attempt to prove that
it can’t be ignored and that it can create a political stalemate, even if it
doesn’t have the absolute majority in the street.
The beginning of the third hundred days was marked with
the organized appearance of the opposition represented in the array of liberal
and leftist parties that formed the National Salvation Front (NSF). For a
moment, the politically polarized opposition seemed to be generating a common
platform.
It was clear that such an organized opposition could
exploit the deteriorated economic
situation to reach out to a large swath of Egyptians after it successfully
reached out to the elite, who felt discontent with the political failures of
the ruling Islamists.
In light of these developments, Baseera conducted a public
opinion poll on the NSF, the country’s leading opposition coalition. The
results were striking, since it showed that just over a third of Egyptians — 35
percent — had never heard of the NSF, and half of those aware of the NSF oppose
it.
Similarly, the February poll showed that Morsi’s
popularity had hit a record low, with presidential job approval ratings
dropping to 49 percent for the first time. The drop also occurred in the
percentage of those who would re-elect President Morsi if elections were held
tomorrow, which declined to 35 percent, while 47 percent said that they
wouldn’t elect him.
Here lies a dilemma: The politically polarized situation,
which dominated the second hundred days, did not continue, and had not been
resolved in favor of one of the factions. Rather, an empty space in the
political landscape was created. Egypt experienced a honeymoon period and later
a political polarization period, and now suffers from a political vacuum.
This begs the question,: What will happen in the next 100
days? Will the presidency be able to restore its declining popularity and fill
the political void under such economic and security challenges, as well as the termination
of dialogue with the opposition?
Will the NSF reach out to the ordinary citizen and break
the isolation that might result from its elitist discourse, which many
Egyptians view as a platform that doesn’t address their goals?
Will other Islamists, such as Salafis, be able to fill the
void and stand up in order to become the more successful political
alternative?
Will the revolutionary forces be able to regroup in order
to restore the role they played in the revolution that they made, but from
which they were unable to reap the fruit of their labor?
Will the militray find itself responsible for seeking a
soultion by intervening if the politcal void increases, the security situation
deteriorates, and national security becomes threatened?
Magued Osman is
the CEO and managing director of the Egyptian Center for Public Opinion
Research, Baseera. This article originally appeared in Al-Shorouk.