Lessons from Egypt?

This newspaper is deeply conflicted by the coup of the Egyptian military against the elected president, Mohammed Morsi.

On the one hand, the action short-circuits the evolution, in Egypt's nascent democracy, of institutions capable of resolving conflicts and, ultimately, preserving the very democracy that Egyptians say they want. It was only a year since Dr Morsi became Egypt's first freely elected leader.

At the same time, we are aware the vast swathes of the Egyptian population were against Dr Morsi and his Islamic Brotherhood, accused of centralising power and failing to deal with the country's economic problems.

The impatience of Egyptians and their ambivalence towards democracy hold lessons for other countries, including our own, where people perceive a deficit in leadership.

They may be willing to eschew democracy and call on institutions which they believe can deliver social stability and economic improvement. Hopefully, it will never come to that in Jamaica.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.