The Troubled Revolutionary Path in Egypt: A Return to the Basics. While many in Egypt are mourning the “death of the revolution” and the ensuing “military coup,” it is time to highlight, or re-highlight some points: 1- To talk about a military coup in June 2012 is to assume that Egypt was run by a civilian government since the toppling of Mubarak, which is completely farcical. The coup, more or less, has been in effect since 11 February 2011, when revolutionaries managed to overthrow Mubarak, and he was replaced by his handpicked army generals. 2- The military junta from the start of the “transitional process” has been in control, and are using all their constitutional, legal, and political weapons to shape the process, and they did not hesitate to use bullets when their “soft power” failed. 3- The military junta are the most keen among all the political players to “handover power” to a civilian government. 4- No revolution gets settled in 18 days or 18 months. 8- The Islamist opposition itself is full of contradictions and internal splits.
Egypt’s Ambiguous Transition. This is part of a series of three related articles. The others are Egypt Tries to Reconstitute Itself and Egypt’s Potential Legislative Agenda. In the eighteen months since they forced their long-serving president to resign, Egyptians have lived through a confusing and contested series of political changes. In the middle of Ramadan this year, the balance of forces in Egyptian politics became clearer with the Mohamed Morsi reasserting the power of the presidency in dramatic fashion. However, if the actors are clearer, the process is not.
Indeed, to describe it as a “process” is flattering a very much unplanned sequence of events. Egypt’s transition may be lurching toward a more pluralist democracy, prolonged instability, renewed authoritarianism, or toward a kind of delegative democracy in which a leader with a popular mandate is able to rule without much oversight and accountability. What certainty there now is comes from a very surprising turn of events.
If so, it would be by accident. Political Conflict and Legal Maneuvering. In the wake of Mohammad Morsi’s assumption of the Egyptian presidency, Egyptian politics suddenly became clear. It was obvious the Muslim Brothers decisively took charge of Egyptian politics and it was only a matter of time before they gained control over the Army. Except of course to the people to whom it was equally obvious that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces took control and it’s only a matter of time until Morsi and the Muslim Brothers are out of power and back on the streets. And the MB and SCAF have made a deal. Or perhaps not. But what the events of the last couple of days show is that after a year and a half of tumultuous politics in Egypt nothing is really settled.
The January 25 uprising brought into the open profound social and economic cleavages and conflicts and the elections since have brought into the open some equally profound conflicts between political organizations. Egypt elections map In Egypt it was resolved in court. Egypt’s New President: Political and Economic Challenges. The new president of Egypt will face myriad political and economic challenges. On the eve of the announcement of the presidential election results, the Carnegie Middle East Center hosted a round table discussion about the difficulties facing the next president and the consequences his first few months in office will have on the country and the entire region.
Carnegie’s Yezid Sayigh moderated the discussion. Great Expectations Perhaps the greatest challenge faced by Egypt’s incoming president will be the population’s high expectations and aspirations, the discussants agreed. Both candidates made a number of campaign promises of reform and development that they may not be able to keep. Political Challenges Continuing Revolution Hosni Mubarak’s resignation last February did not signal the end of the revolution, agreed Tewfik Aclimandos of Collège de France and Hala Mustafa, of “Democracy Review”.
Potential Scenarios Polarization: Security Reform Economic Challenges Fifteen Month Decline. The President, SCAF, and the Future of Egypt: Interview with Sarah Sirgany. Morsi provokes Constitutional Crisis in Egypt by recalling Parliament. Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi tried to steal third base on Sunday, announcing that he was calling back into session the dissolved Egyptian parliament. It would continue to meet, he said, until new parliamentary elections, to be held within 60 days of the completion of the new constitution. He thus took on both the Supreme Court and the officer corps, setting the stage for a face-off. The law under which the parliament had been elected was found unconstitutional by Egypt’s Supreme Court in mid-June, and it found that the body was null and void as a result. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) then ordered the parliament dissolved.
It later scheduled new parliamentary elections for late 2012, after a new constitution is crafted. SCAF also rather weirdly declared that in the absence of a legitimate civilian parliament, its 22 officers would serve as the legislative branch of national government until the new constitution was in place and a new parliament could be elected. Morsi, SCAF and the revolutionary left. As soon as the news broke last Sunday that Mohamed Morsi was officially declared Egypt’s first elected civilian president, I could hear loud happy chants and cheers in my street. The janitors in my neighborhood gathered around the corner in their galabiyas, jumping up and down, in the same fashion I usually see them when the Egyptian national football team scores a goal in some match. Their children, in bare feet, were running up and down the street, chasing posh cars that passed by, chanting “Morsi!
Morsi!”. While, fellow citizens in “working class districts in Cairo celebrate[d]… with fireworks, marches, dancing and sweets amid hopes of a brighter future,” reported my friend Lina el-Wardani of Ahram Online. For many, including those who boycotted the elections or nullified their votes, for sure there was a sigh of relief. The Muslim Brothers have put themselves in a critical position now. The MBs are not a unified block. Arabistpodcast33. Striking Back at Egyptian Workers. Mainstream narratives of the ongoing 2011 Egyptian revolution center around a “crisis of the state.” Among the elements of the crisis were the utter failure of top-down political reform, as shown in the shamelessly rigged 2010 legislative elections; mounting corruption and repression; emerging opportunities for collective action offered by networking sites like Facebook and Twitter; and the advent of neoliberal economic policies and the resulting constraints on the state’s capacity to deliver on its traditional obligations, such as social services, subsidies, price controls and guaranteed employment for college graduates.
There is considerable consensus that the revolution is -- at least in part -- a backlash against the exclusionary economic order that the deposed president’s son Gamal Mubarak and his associates helped to erect over the last decade. The prevailing discourse among Egyptian elites and opinion makers, however, already signals that the answer is no.
Let the Wheel Turn. Chapter’s end! Ordering Egypt's Chaos | Middle East Research and Information Project. For more on the Egyptian election, listen to Joshua Stacher and Mona El-Ghobashy interviewed on Wisconsin Public Radio. To the left of a makeshift stage in a Cairo five-star hotel, the waiting continued. Ahmad Shafiq, the last prime minister of the deposed Husni Mubarak and one of two remaining candidates in Egypt’s first post-Mubarak presidential race, was three hours late. Fewer than 60 hours were left until voting was to start in the June 16-17 runoff. But the atmosphere, beside the burgundy backdrop with its decorative maple leafs flanking the podium, felt more like a garden-variety junket than a last-minute campaign stop.
It was not clear why Shafiq would choose on this of all days to address the Egyptian-Canadian Business Council. Not even Mubarak took such liberties with time, attendees grumbled. Finally, Shafiq entered, thanking the audience and feigning surprise at the warmth of his reception. Every Vote Counts Finishing Off February 11 Spectacles with Consequences Endnotes. The next battle will take longer than 18 days.
Political discourse in Egypt at the best of times can be strange and full of empty talk ("kalam fadi"). But some of the statements recently made by presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq and the media that support him are rather odd. In the lead up to the runoff, we were treated to Shafiq presenting himself as the candidate of the revolution who would usher Egypt into a bright future, while his rival represented “a return to the dark ages” and chaos. He continued to present the Muslim Brotherhood as not just a group of religious fanatics that would take individual freedoms back decades — that attack is fairly standard — but as having been a part of the old regime.
The irony appears to have been lost on the man who served the Hosni Mubarak regime for many years and was appointed prime minister in the last days of his presidency. Shafiq now presents himself as the candidate of “national reconciliation.” Issandr El Amrani is a writer on Middle Eastern affairs. Cartoon 05/06/12.
The Arab Uprisings. Egypt: Fragile Transition.