To the victor in Egypt's presidential race: a terrible economy
(Read article summary)The Muslim Brotherhood has fronted a candidate. A former ally of Mubarak may even run. But whoever wins will start with less than half the foreign reserves Egypt had before the revolution.
The Muslim Brotherhood, after months of denials of interest in the presidency, nominated one of its own for the presidency of Egypt this weekend. In Cairo yesterday, rumors were flying that Omar Suleiman, the retired general who emerged as one of Hosni Mubarak's closest confidants in the final years of his rule, was priming for a run of his own.
Meanwhile, secularists have all but abandoned the body tasked with writing Egypt's new constitution (with a hard-to-believe deadline of one month from now – don't bet on it), angry that the committee is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and their uneasy Islamist allies from the salafi Nour Party.
Egypt's political transition has gotten even messier and more dysfunctional (hard to believe) in recent weeks, and takes real expertise to untangle (for an excellent piece looking at some of the complexity of the presidential race, start here).
But there's one solid fact that will confront whoever wins the presidency and that won't be addressed by the most brilliant and fair constitution in human history: Egypt's economy is in really, really bad shape.
