Ian Bremmer

For months now, the world has been waiting for the results of the momentous elections in Greece and in Egypt. In Greece, it was hoped that citizens would reject candidates who called for the breakup of the euro zone, or a Greek exit. In Egypt, the stakes were simpler, but larger: It was hoped that the election itself wouldn’t be a sham and that the country’s people would get their first true taste of the power of democracy.

It felt like everyone was holding their breath for the results in these two troubled countries, but it turns out neither country had the “disaster election” that some pundits feared. No, what both countries had was a “kick the can” election: For very different reasons, neither Greece nor Egypt is going to transform into a flourishing, liberal, fiscally sound nation overnight. And the task of governing in either country, therefore, is no big prize to either Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras or Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi. A lot of chips have to fall in their favor before they can even begin to get beyond the basic duties of simply showing up to work in the morning and keeping the lights on in government. But again, each country’s situation is different and bears a different explanation of the reality on the ground. Let’s take Egypt, with its internal threats to stability, first.

While the election of Mursi, the incoming Egyptian president, is a signal achievement that goes a long way toward instituting a tradition of civil rather than military rule, he alone will not get the economy to stand on its feet. The Egyptian tourism industry, its most important, has been absolutely crushed. The economy is in a shambles as the thread that was holding it together – Mubarak’s dictatorship – has been pulled from the fabric of Egypt, and the country is a long way from convincing anyone that it has recovered. While Mursi was the better choice for Egypt, he comes from the Muslim Brotherhood, basically a civic organization with no experience or expertise in macroeconomic management. The brotherhood is an important social organization: It’s a lot of things to a lot of people in Egypt, but it’s not an incubator of technocratic economic thinking or governance. That’s what the country will need to get back on its fiscal feet.

And as long as Egypt’s economy is struggling, the civilian leadership will face a threat from the country’s military leaders, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. The SCAF supported Mursi’s opponent, Mubarak’s former prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq. Mursi will have to go a long way to get out from under the SCAF’s thumb, and it’s unclear what resources he’ll have to do that, with his narrow win. One thing is for sure: A “kick the can” strategy will look enticing in this environment. Mursi will most likely postpone fixes for long-term problems to brighten the nearer-term outlook. Take subsidy reform. Right now Egypt spends almost 10 percent of GDP on subsidies, mostly for food and fuel – a situation widely recognized as inefficient and unsustainable – but 51.5 percent of the popular vote is no mandate for Mursi to take on the unpopular task.

In Greece, the general problems of its debt crisis and need for austerity measures to persuade the Germans to bail it out, have been discussed to death in the media. Samaras has taken over from a caretaker government, and he’s got his work cut out for him. But things did not get off to the best start, as his technocratic finance minister, Vassilis Rapanos, has already bowed out of the job due to health problems. With Samaras himself also in the hospital recently for emergency eye surgery, Greece is quite literally laid up right now, hoping it has more time to figure out its next economic move.

Don’t expect much, in other words, from the governments of Mursi and Samaras. While the elections went as well as they could go, nothing fundamental has changed about the pickle both nations find themselves in. Both leaders need fixes that appear to be far outside of their control. Mursi needs to figure out how and whether he can work with the Egyptian military to begin turning his country around. Samaras may have had a say in appointing the new finance minister, Yannis Stournaras, but the real issue is out of his hands: He needs Germany and the euro zone to accept a renegotiation of the existing loan package for Greece, which, over the long run, it cannot afford. The best thing that can come out of both of their tenures is some stability, which would, one hopes, beget even more stability, shoring up the democratic sovereignty of both countries.

But even with that good outcome, which is far from assured, each country will still firmly be in kicking-the-can territory. It will take years before affairs in Greece and Egypt get back to anything like normal. Just as in Germany’s takedown of the scrappy but overmatched Greeks in Euro Cup play this weekend, there will be no miracles this time around.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

“Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” – Winston Churchill

In a little less than two weeks, Egyptians will choose their first new president since Hosni Mubarak took office in 1981. Before we talk about the contenders as selected by Egyptians in the first round of voting in May, let’s pause to consider how far Egypt has come in an incredibly short period of time.

Egypt has seen its thousands of years on the planet pass by without a democracy. Then, over the course of 18 days, it found itself with a revolution partly fueled by digital tools like Twitter that deposed a president (since sentenced to life in jail). Objects of the world’s attention, the protesters found themselves splashed across the pages of Time magazine, a symbol of the power of change that even oppressed citizens can have when they make the most of their moment and refuse to give up. So why the recent disappointment?

For starters, take the outcome of the first round of voting: The two remaining candidates aren’t exactly the liberal-minded leaders the West had been hoping for. One, Ahmad Shafik, idolizes the deposed Mubarak – whom he briefly served as prime minister – calling him a “role model.” The other, Mohamed Morsi, comes from the Muslim Brotherhood, the moderate (for Egypt) Islamist association that for years has run something like a social services agency combined with a religious militia, but is now evolving into a political organization. That’s a key understanding of the Brotherhood – generations of Egyptians may have fond feelings for it, but it’s nascent as a party or electoral force, since Mubarak and the military ruled the state for so long.

While outsiders could argue that the two finalists are the worst possible choices from the first round, the reality is, shockingly, Egyptians didn’t much care about this vote. Turnout, for a country we might think would leap at the chance to exercise democracy, came in at an anemic 46 percent. Most Egyptians aren’t actually clamoring for the kind of radical change we in the West might expect. Some may actually welcome the return of a Mubarak-like figure – kleptocracy worked perfectly fine for a sizable chunk of the population. Tourism was booming, bread was on the table, and the ideology and value set of the government – at least as espoused, if not as practiced – was consistent with commonly held beliefs.

For that reason, no matter which candidate wins, what we’re likely to see is a conservative-leaning but largely ineffectual government. But that government will, to every appearance, have been fairly elected. Now, if you’re wondering why the Egyptians would make such timid-seeming choices after their momentous revolution, that’s an altogether different question. Consider the state of the electorate. There is an elite – and there is everyone else. The middle class in Egypt is far behind the middle class in other developing economies in the world, like Brazil and Mexico. There’s no need for politicians to court them, because they can win on a conservative platform with just the support of the elite and the rank and file. It will take years for the middle class to become a potent political force, a voting bloc that can decide an election, and push leaders to more moderate, open policies. And depending on the shape of the government and reforms there, such a change may, of course, never happen at all.

In short, while no one is particularly thrilled with the aftermath of the revolution in Egypt, it’s not the worst realistic outcome either. A country that has been ruled by autocrats for years – “presidents” that have swiped power from each other as if the country were little more than a backdrop for Game of Thrones or some minor Shakespearean play – is on the cusp of a democratically elected government. Just because it’s not the government the world thought Egypt would elect does not mean it’s not the right government for Egypt, for now. Only time, and the actions of Egypt’s next president, can answer that question for the world. And Egypt is about to learn the sage truth of Prime Minister Churchill’s quote.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

ILLUSTRATION: Elsa Jenna/REUTERS