Not
quite a coup
Source: by S. Nihal Singh: The Tribune
The armed forces of Egypt did not need much encouragement to engineer a coup to oust Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. Rather, the surprise was the alacrity with which masses on Cairo's Tahrir Square deliriously welcomed it. It was not so long ago that protesters, then including members of the now-maligned Muslim Brotherhood, were welcoming the downfall of Hosni Mubarak and his armed forces allies.
Behind this dramatic turn of events lies the one year of rule of the first Egyptian President ever to be elected. For the Brotherhood, it was a consummation of 85 years of toil, deprivation and persecution. But it had persevered, building up a grassroots organisation, providing food, medicines and money to the poor and the needy.
What happened during President Morsi's one year is a tragedy for Egypt and the role of an organisation that got carried away by its unpredicted good fortune to achieve power through a free election. And instead of governing the country and looking after all Egyptians, not merely the 52 per cent who had voted for him, Mr Morsi set about strengthening his own organisation, placing Muslim Brotherhood men in key positions, rushing through an Islamist constitution, giving himself extraordinary powers and packing the only assembly to function.
The suspicion, of course, was that he was not his own master, that the party leadership that had propped him up was calling the shots. Among his many blunders was the appointment of a person belonging to an extremist organisation as the Governor of Luxor, the famous historical site where the worthy's party had massacred dozens of tourists. The outcry against this appointment was so widespread that the Governor had to withdraw his own nomination.
The omens then were hardly propitious for this unique experiment in democracy in Egypt. Mr Morsi's orientation hardly suited him to his new role. The desperate need was to form an inclusive government to give the feeling to those who had fought for Mubarak's ouster a stake in the new dispensation. And it did not take those outside the Brotherhood circle long to feel alienated and left out. It seems that Morsi and his advisers and minders in the Brotherhood were stone deaf to the pleas of others.
It thus came about that as armies of disillusioned youth began planning and plotting the downfall of Mubarak on the first anniversary of his rule and gathered millions of signatures across the country to oust him , they went back to the iconic Tahrir Square. Not to be outdone, President Morsi's supporters set up their show of strength in another part of Cairo. What came as a surprise was the size of the crowd in Tahrir Square last Sunday which, by all accounts, surpassed even the crowds that had gathered on the same square to oust Mubarak.
That was the signal the armed forces were waiting for. In a transparent attempt to court the anti-Morsi protesters, the army flew its helicopters low over the square with the national flag trailing to provoke hoops of joy from the massive sea of humanity. Essentially, the die was cast. It remained for the armed forces to issue a 48-hour ultimatum and to tie up the loose ends. They invited civilian leaders for consultations, including the chief of Al Azhar and the head of the Coptic Church, recently the victim of hate crimes at the hands of Islamists. The new era has been inaugurated under a civilian dispensation but nobody is under any illusion who the boss is.
What of the future? Does Egypt go back to the drawing board again? Obviously, the armed forces will guard their turf. They have vast economic interests and privileges Mr Morsi refrained from axing although he did succeed in getting rid of the long-ruling army top brass. But it would be wise for the army not to be carried away by the euphoria of its soft coup and the welcome it has received from youthful protesters. The young may be volatile but they now feel empowered by successfully dethroning a dictator and an elected ruler who broke faith with them. Unless the army keeps faith with protestErs, it will come to grief.
However, there is the important question of the backlash from Morsi supporters, who naturally feel betrayal because they keep repeating that their leader was duly elected fairly and has now been unfairly deposed. One fear is that members of the Brotherhood might resort to violence, and they have considerable support in the countryside. There again, the sagacity of the civilians advising the army will come into play. Perhaps the approaching month of Ramazan fasting will serve to calm the waters. What is desperately needed is a major effort to reconcile a deeply divided society that has been further polarised by one year of Morsi's rule.
For the present the army enjoys the support of such men as ElBaradei, the former international atomic energy chief, and others such as the veteran former minister and Arab League chief Amr Moussa. The imperative need is to fulfil the promise of early elections to parliament under a new fair constitution leading to the election of a new President. There is much work to be done and the army's sincerity will be known by how the civilian faces of the new dispensation go about their business.
These events have placed the United States in a dilemma. It could not bless the overthrow of an elected President while seeking to preserve a privileged relationship with the Egyptian military, which receives an annual subvention of $1.3 billion. American interests in Egypt are underpinned by its service in relation to Israel as also because it is a pivotal Arab state. One problem for the Obama administration is the US law; once a coup takes place displacing an elected leader, military and other assistance has to stop. It is small wonder then that the US President is tiptoeing around a coup that is not quite a coup. The future promises to be exciting and troublesome.
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