Trusting the armed forces rather than democratically elected governments

It hardly comes as a surprise that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood government has been driven out of power. The army had been the power broker in the country since the days of Nasser in the 1950s until Mubarak's overthrow in 2011.

That the people as a whole had stability and not much else seems to have been the principle. That Mubarak was as corrupt as they come and enriched himself while the citizenry got poorer .... Not good, and if the army in Egypt is to put in power someone else who follows the same philosophy, it does not augur well.

In a working democracy bad leaders should face the electorate and get voted out. I used that argument when Augusto Pinochet replaced Salvador Allende in a coup d'état back in Chile in 1973 and in theory that should still apply. Allende was incompetent and there were riots on the street. Pinochet was a murderous thug who used torture to get his way.

But the country was stable.

Democracy is not always a success story - that is an often forgotten fact! Check out the standings of the (Social Democrat) President of France, François Hollande, and the (Conservative) Prime Minister of the UK, David Caneron. Neither is popular at the moment, and given an election tomorrow both would very likely be shown the door - no doubt to be replaced by someone equally inept.

The plus side for France and the UK, in comparison with Egypt, is that despite all the problems which do not seem to be anywhere near to resolution, there are no rioters on the street. Or at least not very often.

The problem that Chile faced in the 1970s was that many people were impoverished and would still have voted for Allende as the conservative alternative would not have helped improve their situation. A similar sort of situation arises in Egypt in that many voters also live in extreme poverty. Many though live under the illusion that Islam will offer them a way out of this (or salvage their souls while they suffer under poverty) and accordingly vote the religious card. Some 60-odd percent of them.

Both countries split in two. The democratic alternatives could not resolve the situation - in walked the army. Chile has recovered from this and is now a significant democracy with alternatives, and a great degree of stability - so there maybe is hope for Egypt yet, but maybe another 40 years may be needed!

The history of the armed forces taking over though is at best mixed - see Thailand, Pakistan and Nigeria if you want some more significant examples. If stability is the only criterion, then a military dictatorship will provide that for a time. Whether it will bring about increased prosperity for the people at large is another matter entirely - in fact across the African continent military dictatorships have been notoriously corrupt. Egypt is not the only example of this.

Eventually though we have to look at democracy across the world and see how it can be made to work to the benefit of people as a whole. It surely has to be a better alternative that being run by a military junta, but the record for ineptitude of the democratic political class across the world hardly suggests better times ahead either - virtually anywhere.