Tag: Egypt
Polarization
Last night’s massacre in Cairo has disputed origins, but the effect is all too clear: polarization. The Muslim Brotherhood will harden its stance against any “interim” government appointed by former chief justice (now acting president) Adly Mansour. The Salafist Nour party, which had previously indicated it was willing to play in the military’s political game, is now opting out. Commentators will worry about civil war, or Egypt following Syria’s path.
I suspect the real danger is less organized military conflict and more chaotic breakdown. Egypt is on the best of days a difficult country to govern. Now its foreign reserves are dwindling, government revenue is collapsing, and subsidized commodities are growing scarce. Tourism has already evaporated. The mostly poor and at best semi-literate population is not going to be patient with anyone in power. They want bread, if not butter. Read more
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Inclusion is difficult
That’s clear enough from this morning’s news that the Salafist Nour party appears to have vetoed the already announced naming of liberal/secularist Mohamed ElBaradei as prime minister of Egypt’s interim government. It is also apparent from the New York Times account of President Morsi’s fall, which included multiple efforts by the Americans and the army to convince him to broaden his government and include more of his opposition. It was good advice then, and it is good advice now.
But it is difficult. The basic problem is that Egyptians have not yet agreed on the rules of their political game. Morsi rammed through an Islamist-leaning constitution, approved in a referendum, that the army has now suspended. The Nour party, seeing an opening, has endorsed the coup and will want to take advantage of the interim period to try to ensure that the new constitution the army has promised will lean even more in the Islamist direction than Morsi’s ill-fated version. ElBaradei is unlikely to let that happen, as he is a devoted secularist and constitutionalist, albeit one who was apparently prepared to ride to power on the back of a military coup. Read more
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ElBaradei should not make Morsi’s mistakes
If Americans remember Mohamed ElBaradei at all, it is for his stubborn and ultimately vindicated resistance to the George W. Bush administration’s claims that Iraq was acquiring nuclear weapons. ElBaradei was then Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, with which he shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. While an important figure on the secular/liberal part of the political spectrum since the February 2011 revolution, he polled poorly and withdrew as a candidate in the 2012 presidential election that Mohamed Morsi won. ElBaradei said it was a mistake to elect a president before revising the constitution. He wanted a more inclusive, slower process. He then founded the Constitution Party, with his eye on the 2016 election.
Now ElBaradei is to be prime minister of an interim government resulting from this week’s military coup. He faces no lesser challenges than Morsi did. The economy is in a tailspin. The government’s coffers are empty. Security is deteriorating. Rival demonstrations are clashing in the streets of Cairo, Port Said and other major cities. Plus he faces the enormous resentment of the Muslim Brotherhood, which rightly claims Morsi had democratic legitimacy that ElBaradei lacks. Read more
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Was the coup a good idea?
This piece has been cross-posted at Ghurbeh.
Like many, I’m confused about the events in Egypt. While I sympathize with Tamarod’s grievances, ousting President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood was not a good idea. The movement had no other agenda. They did not outline what will happen the day after. They were waiting for the military to announce the post-Morsi transition. Why didn’t Tamarod propose its own agenda?
Morsi ruled Egypt for only one year. He made many mistakes. But Egyptians should not have expected their situation to improve in just one year. If opposition leaders had thought strategically about their future, they would have wanted to keep Morsi in power. The first few years after a revolution are always difficult, making any government unpopular. The opposition should have expected that by the end of Morsi’s first term, they would be able to win elections. Ruling Egypt three years from now would have been easier. If the opposition comes to power now, its popularity will almost inevitably decrease. The new opposition (the Brotherhood), will gain more support, and might be able to win elections in a few years.
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Leahy and democracy in Egypt
Senator Leahy said yesterday:
U.S. aid is cut off when a democratically elected government is deposed by military coup or decree.
This explains why even otherwise reasonable people are bending over backwards to claim that what happened in Egypt yesterday is not a coup, despite the obvious. It also explains President Obama’s deep concern about a coup that removed an unfriendly Muslim Brotherhood and put a friendly army in charge. It may even explain why the Egyptian army chose to turn over governing authority quickly to the chief justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court, who was sworn in as President today (despite suspension of the constitution). Read more
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Coupkoo
With the army’s seizure of power today, Egypt has swerved again in a revolutionary trajectory that has already passed through too many phases and directions to recall. I had imagined that the army, opposition and Muslim Brotherhood might reach a last-minute agreement. It was not to be. President Morsi is apparently in military custody.
No matter how distasteful and incompetent the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, I find it hard to celebrate a military coup, popular though it may be. The Egyptian army took over when Hosni Mubarak fell in February 2011 and made a hash of governing for the next 16 months, until Morsi was inaugurated a year ago. He was correct in claiming legitimacy derived from democratic election. But he lost popular support as security, the economy and social conditions deteriorated. He also failed to maintain his initial truce with the army, which was reportedly offended in particular by his advocacy of jihad by Egyptians against Syria’s Bashar al Asad. Read more
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