As violence escalates, Egypt’s military is trying to bridge a widening political gap by promising a rapid return to civilian rule. But its gesture of accommodation does not get to the heart of the problem: the presidential system, inherited from the Mubarak era, virtually guarantees a repetition of the tragic events of the past year. A democratic breakthrough requires a more fundamental constitutional redesign, in which the contending sides compete for power in a European-style parliamentary system.
If Egypt had made that switch in the interim Constitution adopted two years ago, or in the revisions that Mohamed Morsi, as president, rammed through last year, it could well have avoided the current upheaval and bloodshed in the first place.
The presidency is a winner-take-all office. This may be acceptable in countries like the United States, where well-organized parties contend for the prize. But it is a recipe for tyranny in places like Egypt, where Islamists have powerful organizational advantages in delivering the vote.
Because their opponents will have great difficulties uniting behind a single candidate, Islamists could probably parlay their strong minority support into another presidential victory. To prevent that result, it is predictable that the military will suppress the political efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood and similar groups — transforming the next election into a democratic farce. The next president would not only emerge with an illegitimate mandate. His victory would convert the Islamists into undying opponents of the regime.
Only a parliamentary system provides a realistic path to a more stable, inclusive future. Even if Islamist parties won a substantial share of the vote, they would not be able to monopolize power.
Consider the Brotherhood’s best-case scenario: Although millions of Egyptians took part in the street demonstrations that preceded President Morsi’s ouster, the Muslim Brotherhood could still win a quarter of the seats in the parliamentary elections, with the more orthodox Salafists gaining another 15 percent. In contrast, the non-Islamist forces are fractured into a number of different factions, ranging from Christian to social democratic. Although the Brotherhood might well emerge with more seats than any other single party, its non-Islamist opponents might nevertheless cobble together a governing coalition. Even if its opponents failed, the Brotherhood could not form a coalition either, unless it reached out to some secularists for support — especially since the Brotherhood could not count on the Salafists to always back it.
Under either scenario, Islamists would remain a significant factor in the political game, as they deserve to be in a democracy; their influence would undercut the arguments of religious zealots who claim that democracy is a sham.
But this need for cooperation across the religious-secular divide wouldn’t be met under any presidential scenario. Once the military assures the election of an acceptable president, Islamists would probably walk out of the legislature. Even if they remained, they would predictably use their parliamentary platform to denounce Mr. Morsi’s replacement as illegitimate. If they tried to block legislation, the new president could push through his program without their support by greasing the wheels with political patronage and outright corruption. If that failed, he could make aggressive use of his executive powers — generating cycles of alienation that would, over time, undermine the very ideal of democracy.
Parliamentary government is no cure-all, but a good design can remedy the most serious pathologies. Some systems, like the Italian, require a government to fall whenever a majority of representatives votes “no confidence” — leading to notorious episodes of instability. Others, like the German system, keep the old government in power until the new majority can actually agree on a replacement. That is by far the better approach for Egypt. While momentary majorities may say no to government initiatives, they should show that they have the sustained support of Parliament as a body before they can establish themselves in power.
Egypt’s future will depend on the statesmanship of its leaders and the effectiveness of its policies. But a decisive move in the direction of a well-designed parliamentary democracy would create a constitutional order that encourages democrats of all persuasions to reach out to one another.
The military’s current transition plan doesn’t contemplate such a breakthrough. But it doesn’t preclude it either. The “constitutional declaration” issued by the provisional president, Adli Mansour, establishes a committee of 10 jurists to propose constitutional amendments that will set the stage for a new round of elections. Before these proposals are presented to the voters in a referendum, they must be vetted by a 50-person committee appointed by social and governmental institutions, as well as by the provisional government.
The timeline set by the military invites discussion of the fundamental issue. It schedules the new amendments to go before the people in about three months, followed within two more months by parliamentary elections. It then provides for the new parliament to call for presidential elections during the first week of its session. Given this sequence, reformers can simply argue for the elimination of the final stage in the process, demanding that the military turn over power to civilians once a governing coalition gains the support of a parliamentary majority.
In making this move, the protagonists would not simply be aping European models. They would be taking sides in a vibrant debate within the Islamic world. When Turks mobilized in protest against their government last month, one of their larger grievances was Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s effort to replace Turkey’s system of parliamentary government, through a constitutional amendment that would allow him to gain direct election as a powerful president.
The demonstrators rightly saw this as a move by Mr. Erdogan to consolidate his power, and their mass opposition may well have put an end to his authoritarian initiative.
The question now is whether Egyptians will join in this broader popular movement to repudiate presidentialism, before it dooms their country’s great experiment in democracy.
Bruce Ackerman is a professor of law and political science at Yale, and the author of the forthcoming book We the People: The Civil Rights Revolution.