One year president Muhammad Mursi; three responses

Language: 
English
Sent On: 
Fri, 2013-06-28
Year: 
2013
Newsletter Number: 
30

One year president Muhammad Mursi; three responses

 



In front of  Metro Station "Sadat" at Tahrir Square June 25, 2013 (left)  and Tahrir Square June 28, 2013 (right).

 

 

 



 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 AWR Cairo, June 28, 2013

 
One year after the election of President Muhammad Mursi; three different responses:
  • The Tamarod movement claims it has collected 15 million signatures asking president Mursi to resign.
  • Dr. ‘Abd al-Mun’im al-Futūh asks for a referendum on whether or not new presidential elections should be held.
  • Muslim Brothers and their allies want President Mursi to continue another three years and thus complete his four-year period in office.
The first and third parties have asked their followers to support their stances and big demonstrations are expected. 
 
Egypt is divided and suffers from the power struggle now taking place.
 
Dr. George Messiha of the Wafd Party informed us that just after President Mursi was sworn in as the first civilian president of Egypt, a major Egyptian polling organization found he had an approval rating of 87%. One year later this dropped to 27%. What happened?
 
The beginning of President Mursi’s first year in power appeared promising, but the situation quickly deteriorated and resulted in a fierce power struggle between various political factions. The factions include Mursi’s own Freedom and Justice Party, which is the political branch of the Muslim Brotherhood; various Salafi parties and movements; remains of the old regime in the army; the police; the judiciary and various ministries, which are often described as feloul [supporting the old regime]; and finally, members of the political opposition who united in the National Salvation Front.
 
Early in his presidency, President Mursi made significant efforts to include non-Islamists in his team of advisors, including the Copt Samir Marcos. However, this team of advisors largely disintegrated after November 22, 2012, when Mursi failed to consult the majority of his advisors and granted himself power to legislate without judicial oversight or review of his acts.
 
Mursi’s act was one of despair; the Supreme Court was about to rule invalid the formation of the Senate and the Constitutional Assembly and such a ruling would have crippled Mursi’s ability to rule. Mursi’s decree resulted in fierce and often violent demonstrations against him, which continued until the constitutional referendum held on December 15 and 22. The new constitution was accepted with 63.8% in favor of the constitution with 32.9% of the electorate. Several judges had refused to oversee the elections.
 
New parliamentary elections were postponed because there was disagreement between the opposition parties and the Freedom and Justice Party over the electoral law. Subsequently, President Mursi has been forced to rule without Parliament. Meanwhile, the economy and security in the country continued to deteriorate and the rule of law is largely absent. In the beginning of June 2013, the cabinet was reshuffled and new members of the Muslim Brotherhood were added to the cabinet. Three weeks later, 17 new governors were appointed, which further strengthened the Brotherhood’s grip on power. The movement Tamarod (Rebel) stated it collected some 15 million signatures asking for President Mursi’s resignation. Although verity of this number is disputed, it is certain that the frustration against President Mursi is substantial and so is the Muslim Brotherhood fear to lose their grip on power in the country. Leading Muslim Brothers believe that the judiciary, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Antiquities, the Ministry of Defense, and the Ministry of Interior are dominated by feloul, people that belong to the old regime.
 
President Mursi’s opposition has not made it easy for him and his administration, but Mursi’s own actions have not helped much to reduce the growing polarization in the country either.  
 
Internal division and power struggles have had great negative consequences for the country. One negative consequence of the current power struggles is Egypt’s weakened ability to negotiate an effective arrangement for Ethiopia’s plans to build “the Renaissance Dam”, a collection of four dams in the border area between Ethiopia and Sudan.
 
A water panel of four internationally recognized experts from the UK, France, Germany and South Africa concluded their findings about Ethiopia’s plans in May. The panel had met with representatives from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia and reported that the dams would be highly disastrous for Egypt, possibly costing Egypt 15 to 20 billion of m3 of water (around 30 per cent of its water resources) and 30 per cent of the electricity generated at the Aswan dam. The construction of these dams would be disastrous for Egypt, a country already suffering from water shortages and whose population continues to grow rapidly.  
 
In 1985, Ethiopia was already negotiating plans for the construction of a dam, though much smaller in size. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, President Mubarak warned Ethiopia that the Egyptian air force would bomb them if they would try to carry out their plans. Ethiopia backed down. After the Revolution, and in particular after the election of President Mursi, Ethiopia has seen Egypt as weak and internally divided. Not only is there now a possibility to build these dams, there is an opportunity to build a dam with a capacity many times greater than originally planned: 74 billion m3 instead of 14,5 billion m3. The original dam was supposed to be good for 3000 megawatt. The new dams, five times as large, would only bring Ethiopia double the amount of electricity, which suggests that large amounts of water will be used for Ethiopian agriculture and will thus never go to Egypt. The panel found the Ethiopian plans rushed and insufficiently studied. Additionally, the experts also calculated the safety level of the dam to be 1.5 compared to the Aswan Highdam, which has a safety level of 12.
 
President Mursi has reportedly made no effort to discourage the Ethiopians to go ahead with their plans. Instead, Mursi stated that he wanted to see these dams as a model of cooperation between Ethiopia and Egypt. “What cooperation?!” critics scoff, “a cooperation that endangers Egypt’s national security?
 
An Egyptian Foreign Ministry official wants to see a dialogue between Egypt and Ethiopia on two levels: political and technical. More studies are needed and Ethiopia should halt construction activities until the outcome of the studies is known, but Ethiopia refuses this. As a result of strong internal divisions, Egypt has very little space for maneuvering. 
 
Many more examples could be given of disastrous consequences of the lack of unity in Egypt. In Maadi, a southern suburb of Cairo, villas are torn down and replaced by poor quality high-rise buildings with apartments that are sold for good money. The apartments look beautiful and on first glance, few buyers notice all the faults that are carefully hidden behind plaster. However, it won’t take long before the plaster begins to crack revealing the poor quality building. Facilities for the expected influx of thousands of new residents do not exist; electricity and water facilities are already overloaded resulting in regular cuts. This will only get worse. These are businesses that make a profit and then disappear. In the days of Mubarak, it was illegal to tear down villas and build such colossal high-rise buildings in Maadi. Laws have probably not changed, but law enforcement is fully absent and thereby helps turn a previously nice neighborhood into a slum
 
The power struggle has a significant impact on the country and disrupts many aspects of life. Mr. Ahmad, a leading member of one of the opposition parties, stated in a private meeting: let the country collapse and fall apart as long as Mursi disappears. This expresses a willingness to fight one’s political opponent at the expense of the country. I totally disagree!
 
I want to show the extent to which tensions are increasing by sharing the responses from different people:
 
Lamis Fayad, an Egyptian activist studying and living in Germany, described the Tamarod (Rebel) movement as the third wave of the Revolution “against religious fascism.” Lamis calls for international solidarity and writes that the Muslim Brotherhood has kidnapped the Revolution. “The Muslim Brotherhood carries an ideology which contradicts all the international values regarding human, political, economic and social rights, including women rights, rights of minorities, freedom of medias and independence of justice. The Rebel campaign came out as a creative way to show to the whole world that this President doesn't represent the people's revolution demands: bread, freedom and social justice. The 30th of June will launch the second wave of the Egyptian revolution, by asking the President to call for anticipated and fair elections. The Rebel Campaign is asking Egyptians abroad and all citizens concerned with social justice and freedom to support its struggle to prevent Egypt from falling in the hands of extremism, which would drive a « great civilization » into the path of Afghanistan. We ask them: - to organize, from the 30th of June on, daily solidarity actions and rallies in front of all Egyptian embassies and consulates. - To put pressure on their own governments, particularly the US and the EU authorities, to stop them from supporting an anti-democratic and extremist power, and therefore contradicting the democratic values they keep.”
Their message to the world can be found through this link.

In our previous newsletter, Muhib Zakī wrote that the president’s actions have made him lose “all legitimacy.” He calls for early elections, “thereby either winning and thus silencing the opposition with this new mandate, or losing and stepping down in favor of a new man chosen by the people.”
 
Dr. ‘Abd al-Mun’im al-Futūh, former presidential candidate and head of the Strong Egypt Party sees president Muhammad Mursi as the legitimate Egyptian president and he does not want to see President Mursi step down under pressure of demonstrations. Instead, he believes that “Mursi, as a president, should call for a referendum for early presidential elections and remain in power until a new president is elected and hand power to him. That would be respecting the constitution, even though we are against this constitution.”
 
Abd al-Mun’im al-Futūh continues, “we respect the public will that brought Mursi to power, just like we should respect the current Constitution. But having a gap in these times, and bringing the President of the Constitutional Court to power or a civil council, all this means a new revolution. The Strong Egypt Party is against another revolution. We have to complete the 25 January Revolution.”
 
“If the people vote for early elections, then a new president will be elected and then there will be a transition of power. Or if the people refuse early election, then Mursi should remain president.” 
 
Dr. ‘Abd al-Mun’im al-Futūh has his roots in the Muslim Brotherhood but never wants to “elect anyone from the Muslim Brotherhood again because the experience was very bad.”
 
“Egypt is living a crisis because of the bad performance of the current authority, which has led people to express their anger about its poor performance. The President has made promises, which he did not keep. His performance is poor and it excludes some people. This is from the perspective of the authority. But from the perspective of the opposition, they are trying to turn the political conflict into an ideological conflict. We reject this. The conflict between the authority and the opposition should remain a political conflict based on political differences. It should not be an ideological conflict. “
 
Ministers and Governors of the Freedom and Justice Party are widely accused that they only nominate people from their own circle. “This is the nature of closed organizations; they haven’t fulfilled their promises to include other people,” ‘Abd al-Mun’im al-Futūh explains.
 
The Muslim Brothers feel embattled and pushed into a corner. Efforts for a national dialogue between the Muslim Brothers and their allies and the opposition have been futile. The Muslim Brothers are well aware that they will most likely be out of power for many decades to come if they lose their grip on power. In turn, this is precisely what much of the opposition wants. The Muslim Brotherhood is unlikely to give in to calls for early elections. The opposition is able to get hundreds of thousands of people to the street, but so are the Muslim Brothers. 
 
President Mursi says he has no plans to step down. "When George W. Bush had a 22% approval rate, Americans didn't talk about early presidential elections – that's not the way that democracies are run," a presidential source said.
 
"It's not about this president and it's not about this regime. If this is established as a precedent, given the degree of polarization in Egyptian society today, we will not have a stable government for tens of years." [Patrick Kingsley in the Guardian of June 23, 2013].
 
In a televised speech on Wednesday June 26, Mursi apologized for some of his mistakes and offered to let opponents help amend parts of Egypt's divisive new constitution. The president ordered the formation of a "national reconciliation committee," consisting of representatives of political parties, Egypt's Al-Azhar, the Coptic Orthodox Church, movements that participated in the January 25 revolution and NGOs. The committee, he said, shall be charged with promoting "national dialogue" aimed at bridging gaps between the country's various political factions. This sounds good, but in that same speech the president also lashed out to his opponents in a way that showed little sense of reconciliation. He explicitly mentioned Makram Muhammad Ahmad, former head of the press syndicate (23:44), Coptic leader Munir Fahrī Abd al-Nūr of the Wafd Party (29:10), Kamal al-Shazlī and Fathī Surūr (former NDP leaders), Ahmad Bahgat and other pro-NDP businessmen with their own strong media outlets that criticize president Mursi. Mursi responded with claims that the media was tarnishing the image of the presidency and the government and inciting violence. He accused former regime figures, such as Mubarak oligarchs Safwat al-Sharif and Zakaria Azmī, of working to destabilize Egypt.  "Soon Safwat al-Sharif and Zakaria Azmī will be considered 'revolutionaries' as well. Why not? Everyone has been acquitted," he said sarcastically, noting that Egypt's court system had exonerated most former regime figures implicated in cases of corruption. Statements such as these feed into the widespread belief among Muslim Brothers that the Egyptian judiciary has taken sides against president Mursi.
 
He also took a swipe at Ahmad Shafīq, the Mubarak-era's last prime minister and Mursi's nemesis during last year's presidential polls. "Ahmad Shafīq – is he a 'revolutionary'? He's wanted [by the authorities]," the president said, in reference to the host of corruption charges that Shafīq – currently based in the UAE – faces in Egypt. "He's based abroad yet continues to call for toppling the [Egyptian] government," Mursi said of Shafīq. "Is that not a crime?"  [Al-Ahram Online, June 27].
Attacking leaders in person will only put more oil on the fire.  National dialogue cannot exclude leaders of the former regime.
 
Many of Mursi’s opponents (but certainly not all) are openly stating that they would like to see the Egyptian army take over governance from the Brothers. A senior military source told the Guardian on June 27 that the army did not want to intervene. But they stated that if the June 30 protests are as widespread and prolonged as those that drove Egypt's 2011 uprising, and if serious fighting broke out between Mursi's supporters and his opponents, then the army may regard the protests as a more legitimate representation of the people's will than the elections that brought Mursi to office a year ago – and would step in to facilitate a transition of power to a technocratic caretaker government [Patrick Kingsley in the Guardian of June 27, 2013].
 
With the opposition bent on forcing Mursi out as president and the Muslim Brothers making decisions that only further enraged the opposition, the readiness for compromise is low. 
 
Underground station near Tahrir Square blocked by protesters June 28, 2013. 
Photo BBC News (World



Debates are not only heated on the streets and in the media, but also in private. Yesterday I was with a group of four Egyptians, businessmen and academics. Two support Mursi and two called themselves feloul. They asked me to take sides. I won’t. We remain in favor of dialogue that involves all parties. The Muslim Brotherhood or the opposition cannot run Egypt alone. Political parties will need to do this together!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Cornelis Hulsman,
Editor-in-chief Arab-West Report