Egyptian Election Results: Panic Time for “Arabist” Liberals?

The Arabist is a good site for monitoring what’s happening Egypt-wise. It’s run by a set of smart analysts, who in American terms, we can label as liberal, anti-Bush/”neo-con”, and critical of Israel. They think Juan Cole is a worthy of their brief blogroll, for example. They are also on the scene in Cairo, and despite their U.S. connections, ready to think of themselves as “Cairenes.”

If you’ve got time for a long podcast this week, the one you need to hear is their Podcast #20 , reflecting upon the first round of Egyptian elections, whose big surprise was not a solid and “first-place” Muslim Brotherhood showing, which was expected by all observers, but a very good showing by the Salafists, who can be considered extreme Sharia-ists in any context, but particularly in comparison with the Arabist’s view of the Brotherhood(a view too-benign, IMO, but quite informed and thus not crude in the usual U.S. conservative manner). That podcast lets you hear what the present situation looks like to those most in sympathy with the Arab Spring protests—and no, it does not look good. Poignant to hear this group conversation admit that logically, the panic point for non-Islamists has now been reached, and then for the various participants to ask one another, “But you’ve no plans to leave Egypt, right?”

Very helpful election-result charts are on the Arabist as well.