How a dictatorship forms

Democracy is defined as the rule of the people through elected representatives. For the system to work for the interest of the electorate, there should be a balance between the government, the market and civil society. The government should regulate the market ensuring fair distribution of wealth, sustainable business practice and labor rights. Civil society monitors the government to prevent government abuse of power, maintain civil & individual rights and educate people. The market provides goods and service, provide employment for most of the population and pressure the government for economic reforms.

The government itself is divided into executive, judiciary and parliament, thus creating a system of checks and balances. Currently in Egypt, the military, a part of the executive branch, is taking over the role of parliament passing laws like the election laws. The juntas are also replacing the judiciary by subjecting civilians to military courts. Hence the military has unchecked powers in a critical transitional period.

The juntas are not using this power wisely; they are gradually rolling back the civil rights of citizens. Many activists are being prosecuted like Assma Mahfouz for exercising her free speech right of criticizing the military. They have used violence to disperse peaceful protesters in Tahrir square. They also subjected female activists to virginity checks in order to intimidate and humiliate them. Furthermore, they are also gradually taking the Islamist side, hence they are not neutral party in the political game.

Finally, to avoid a new dictatorship, citizens need to be vigilant by maintaining pressure on the military to stop trying civilians in military court, create a civilians transparent process to write the constitutions and put a firms deadline for handing power to a civilian government

Why the Army can not lead a country

Although, the Egyptian army is full of brave men and women who are willing to put their lives on harms way to protect our homeland, I believe that it is important for the army to remain neutral from politics. I have nothing personal against my brothers and sister in uniform, however, I have serious doubts about the military as an institution and as a culture could undermine our nascent democracy.

The army is built on culture of blindly following orders,it is important during military operations that the commander have full control of the troops, thus maintaining a close link between higher military strategy and tactical operation on the ground. To optimize operational security it is important to keep as few people as possible in the know and only the few high rank officers have the whole strategic picture of the war theater. It is important to trust the fewest people as possible, those key military leaders have to pass background checks to minimize the infiltration enemy intelligence.

On the other hand, an open political process depends on diversity of opinion, decent is encouraged to provide the widest array of solutions. This is followed by deliberations between different political factions that is covered widely by the free media. The informed electorate then pick wining vision to prevail and in some cases a compromise have to be reached. In the democratic system, freedom of information is critical so that the electorate can account the government based on accurate media reports. For the political process to work rival factions have to trust each other and compromise, especially if neither have electoral majority and to maintain social peace.

The militarily culture is not inherently evil, it best used to defend our homeland. The military can not manage a democratic process or even a democratic transition because democratic values and norms are not part of the institution culture or individual officers psychology. Asking the military to be democratic could be like asking pigs to fly.