CAIRO, July 7: For Egypt’s military chiefs, the final spur to rebellion came on June 26. That day top generals met Mohamed Mursi, the country’s first democratically elected president, and spoke bluntly, telling the Islamist leader what he should say in a major speech he planned as protests against him intensified around the country.
“We told him it has to be short, respond to opposition demands to form a coalition government, amend the constitution and set a timeframe for the two actions,” an officer present in the room told Reuters. “Yet he came out with a very long speech that said nothing. That is when we knew he had no intention of fixing the situation, and we had to prepare for Plan B.”
The officer added: “We had prepared for all scenarios, from street violence to mass clashes, and had troops ready to handle both situations.” Like other serving officers interviewed for this report, the person requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
As tensions rose over the following days, Mursi remained defiant. In a final telephone conversation with armed forces commander General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Wednesday, the president laughed and made light of mass demonstrations against him, a military source said.
“He just didn’t believe what was going on,” the source familiar with Sisi’s contacts said. Any hope that the bearded, bespectacled Mursi would call a referendum on his own future or go quietly, had evaporated.
Soon afterwards, as millions took to the streets, the military executed their plan, confining Mursi as a prisoner in his own Republican Guard compound, arresting key supporters in his Muslim Brotherhood and seizing control of parts of the media. Thus ended the first attempt to graft political Islam and democracy onto the Arab world’s most populous and historically powerful state, two and a half years after a popular uprising ousted veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
The ease and abruptness of Mursi’s overthrow underlines the fragility of the Arab Spring that toppled a string of Middle East autocrats. Hopes that popular rebellions might lead to democracy taking root remain largely unfulfilled, although the experiment is still in progress in Tunisia.
Mursi’s downfall in Egypt, a strategic hinge between the Middle East and North Africa, makes plain the fractured nature of the region and the lack of institutional depth to sustain democracy when the tides of popular opinion change. The result in Egypt and elsewhere are deep divisions and instability.
Mursi’s ouster has also renewed the debate around whether democracy and political Islam can co-exist. The Muslim Brotherhood’s first taste of power lasted little more than a year. Muslim Brotherhood members in Egypt point to the irony of the West encouraging democracy but quietly supporting a military coup, even if few Western leaders are calling it that.
The military’s move has also further exposed the many ways in which the Muslim Brotherhood struggled to govern. Egyptians and investors alike complained that some ministries had descended into chaos, with key positions filled by Muslim Brotherhood stalwarts who knew little of the workings of a modern economy. The Egyptian stock market rallied the day after Mursi’s overthrow.
Mursi’s own shortcomings were stark, and stand in contrast to the way someone like Nelson Mandela, ailing at the other end of the continent, came to power with a message of unity and forgiveness.
SECURITY RISK
A provincial engineering professor, Mursi was not a natural political leader. He had become the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential candidate only when the party’s first choice was disqualified. Nevertheless, the novice president appeared decisive on taking office, practising a winner-takes-all interpretation of power that alienated a wide swath of secular and Islamic opponents.
Soon after he was elected in June 2012 with 51.7 percent
Of the vote, Mursi ordered Egypt’s two top generals to retire; one was Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi, a veteran who had served Mubarak for 20 years. It seemed a significant break with the past.
Mursi’s choice as the new head of the army was General Sisi, 58, a career infantry officer who had been groomed for a top role with spells as a field commander, studies at a U.S. War college and a stint as a military attache in Saudi Arabia. Sisi was also a devout Muslim and seemed a good fit with Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood sponsors, who wanted the military to take a back seat after decades of being the real power.
(AGENCIES)
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