A week after carrying out his ultimatum to depose President Mursi, General al-Sisi delivered a new 48-hour ultimatum to those alienated by his actions to end their protests against the military coup. Even as the general demanded that the protesters end their demonstrations, he called upon his own supporters to take to the streets nationwide in order to give the army a “mandate” to confront its critics, whom he referred to as “terrorists.” This call to action was later parroted by Egypt’s interim president (a high-ranking member of the disgraced Mubarak regime, hand-picked by Gen. al-Sisi) and the tamarod “rebels.” Of course, this supposed license is ironic given that one of the common criticisms of President Mursi is that he overstepped his popular mandate—despite the overwhelming victory of his party in parliamentary elections, and its subsequent win in the presidential race. Apparently, while democratic elections do not empower their victors with a strong mandate, protests can give the SCAF legitimacy to do anything—first to commit a coup against Egypt’s first democratically-elected president less than a year into his term, and now it seems to restore the Mubarak-era police state.
Empowered by the opposition rallies (although apparently not disempowered by those who were protesting the coup), scores of peaceful protestors were killed in the streets, with Human Rights Watch reporting that the majority of victims were shot in the chest, neck, or head—indicating that the security forces were shooting to kill. Later, these forces stormed and attempted to dismantle the protest camps. The interim government would go on to announce that the despised Mubarak-era “religion police” were to be re-activated, even as al-Mansur gave the army renewed legal grounding to arrest civilians. It is likely that these will be just the first of many “necessary” authoritarian measures in Egypt’s new “War on Terror,” a campaign which will increasingly jump from propaganda into reality as a result of the SCAF’s actions:
Throughout the protest movement which preceded the military coup against Husni Mubarak, and in subsequent parliamentary and presidential elections, the Islamists were overwhelmingly peaceful and law-abiding participants in the democratic process—and they would prove to be its primary beneficiaries. However, the actions by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) throughout, culminating in the removal of President Mursi and the subsequent persecution of the Brotherhood—these sent the message to many Islamists that the democratic and legal process is a dead end: the deep-state and its international supporters have no respect for the popular will.The state’s institutions have continued to be dominated by the SCAF, the deep-state and the fulul (high-ranking members of the former regime who were ostensibly cast out of government when the dictator was deposed, but who were also given blanket-immunity from prosecution for the regime’s crimes and often retained significant wealth and influence). This corruption has been so long-standing, and runs so deep, that the state apparatus is incapable of being reformed; instead, by any means necessary, it must be uprooted in its entirety and replaced—and by something other than Western models of governance. Although not inevitable, extremism is certainly a natural response to these convictions.
The army claimed that the coup was necessary to prevent Egypt from descending into chaos—predictably, their intervention brought about the very outcomes it was supposed to prevent; however, by feeding into sectarianism and violence, elements from among the protesters are inadvertently supporting the SCAF’s narrative in the name of resistance. Exploiting these developments, it is likely the army will continue to serve as a destabilizing force in Egyptian politics for the foreseeable future. And while the army’s actions have been widely depicted as a forced response to extraordinary circumstances, this is actually the third major attempt by the SCAF to seize “legitimate” total control over the state since the military coup which deposed Mubarak. Accordingly, the notion that the SCAF is acting in the interests of democracy is absurd– and the belief they will transition real authority to a civilian government seems naïve at best:
1st Attempt: The Lead-up to the Elections
Nearly a year after the coup against Mubarak, there was little evidence of any “transition” towards a democratically-elected civilian government. Instead, there was widespread oppression and virtually no reform—ultimately this prompted renewed civil unrest, which the army responded to in a brutal fashion, injuring thousands, arresting thousands more, and subjecting female prisoners to “virginity tests” (a practice the current head of the SCAF, Gen. al-Sisi, defended). Ultimately bowing to domestic and international pressure, the army agreed to move forward with parliamentary elections and set a date for a presidential race.
At the time, there was widespread (if inexplicable) confidence among observers within Egypt and abroad that while the Brotherhood and other Islamist parties would likely comprise a substantial political minority, liberals and secularists would dominate the political theater in forthcoming elections. Instead, Islamist parties garnered nearly ¾ of the votes. This outcome sent shockwaves throughout the “deep state” (a term referring to those anti-democratic elements within state institutions which work towards reinstating or preserving the old system of autocratic governance, be it for ideological or self-serving reasons).
As it became obvious that the Islamists were going to win by wide margins in the parliamentary elections, the SCAF defined Egypt’s fledgling democracy as a “presidential state not a parliamentary one,” conferring a host of legal authorities to any forthcoming president while undermining those of the newly-elected parliament. Gen. al-Sisi subsequently “advised” the Islamist parties to be satisfied with their parliamentary gains and to refrain from running candidates in the presidential elections. Even as this warning went out, Mubarak’s former PM Ahmed Shafiq announced his candidacy for the office of president. Days later the SCAF released the “al-Selmi communique” which ensured:
- Any forthcoming civilian government would not have tactical control over the military (unlike in the American system, for instance, where Congress and the President set the agenda, which the Army is bound to execute)
- The elected government would have no oversight/control over the military budget
- The SCAF would forever serve as the “Protector of Legitimacy” in Egypt’s democracy, with the right to remove any elected government at any time
- The SCAF would have veto power for the forthcoming constitution and any subsequent laws passed by the civilian government
With Gamal Mubark under arrest (recognized within the deep state as probably the biggest threat to the military’s hegemony), and with the Brotherhood ostensibly agreeing not to run for the office, the military set out to prevent Western-backed liberals from seizing the presidency, either. Towards this end, they purged Egypt of foreign (primarily American) NGOs which had long provided activists with training, funds, and logistical support; this effectively neutered the liberal opposition. The fulul seemed certain to win: it was primarily a question as to whether Ahmed Shafiq or Amr Musa would represent them. Shortly after the NGO purge, seeing the regime poised to legitimize its reinstatement through the polls, the Brotherhood reneged on its vow to abstain from the election and nominated Khairat al-Shater as their candidate. The state quickly barred al-Shater from running, thrusting the Brotherhood’s pre-approved secondary candidate, Muhammad Mursi, into the fray.
Mursi was largely unknown outside of the Brotherhood, had few technocratic credentials, and was not particularly charismatic. Moreover, the field included thirteen candidates, many of whom were much more prolific. Accordingly, there was widespread doubt that Mursi would even survive the first round of elections (which is likely why his candidacy was approved in the first place). Instead, he won the first round, and faced a runoff against Ahmed Shafiq.
Having to confront the prospect of an Islamist-dominated parliament and a Brotherhood president (which could have collectively acted as an authentic bulwark against the SCAF’s authority), two days before the second round of voting commenced, the high-court disbanded the parliament, granting the military full legislative authorities until new elections were held (which, the court declared, could not happen until after a new constitution was passed). Then, with Mursi leading decisively in the final polls, the SCAF put forward a decree which severely limited the powers of any incoming elected president—a prescient move, as the Brotherhood’s candidate was ultimately declared the victor in the contest. Thereafter, Ahmed Shafiq relocated to the UAE where he immediately set to work building a network of allies to overthrow the newly-elected president.
2nd Attempt: Failed Coup, Successful Propaganda
President Mursi’s first order of business was to ensure the transfer of authority from the military to a civilian government. Towards that end, he attempted to reinstate the elected parliament shortly after taking office; this move was immediately blocked by Egypt’s high court, leaving the democratic transition in a catch-22:
With the parliament disbanded, and given the constraints of previous decrees by the SCAF and the courts, Egypt’s “civilian government” consisted of little more than Mursi himself. Absent a constitution, his role and powers were vague, rendering him little more than a figurehead. Prior to Mursi’s election, the body charged with drafting a new constitution was disbanded by the courts. The parliament came together to form a second committee but was, itself, dissolved shortly thereafter. Weeks into Mursi’s term, this second constituent assembly was also facing dissolution by the courts. It was unclear how things would proceed from there: the parliament was supposed to appoint an assembly to draft a constitution, but a new parliament could not be elected until after said constitution was passed. It is likely that the formation of a new constitution would therefore have fallen to the SCAF, which had assumed legislative powers in the interim. This would have been tantamount to a judiciary coup.
Compounding this dilemma was constant obstructionism by the Egyptian deep state (to include the state media) which, from day-one, largely refused to recognize an outsider, especially from the Muslim Brotherhood, as a legitimate president. This resistance, paired with the vagueness of his role within the state, rendered Mursi incapable of meaningfully addressing the severe and myriad problems Egypt was faced with when he took office (even if he had the technocratic know-how to resolve these issues, which he didn’t). In an attempt to break out of this impasse, the president exploited the constitutional ambiguity of his office in order to retire Gen. Tantawi and a number of other antagonistic Mubarak holdovers. This provoked a number of the fulul to openly call for a “second revolution” to depose Mursi, who was only two-months into his term. Among the people, these pleas fell largely on deaf ears as the president was extremely popular at the time, and Tantawi et al. were widely despised.
While Mursi’s measures did help tamp down (open) hostility by the deep state, it did not move Egypt closer to legitimate civilian authority. And without the support and ideas of a broad civilian government, the president continued to find himself unable to gain traction on many of the country’s pressing issues. Then word came down that the high-court was preparing to declare the second constitutional committee invalid while affirming the SCAF’s controversial constitutional decrees. At best, this would have prolonged Egypt’s transitional limbo indefinitely (at worst, it would render any forthcoming civilian government more-or-less superfluous).
In order to prevent this outcome, President Mursi temporarily assumed broad legal authority which he used exclusively to reinstate the parliament, and to allow the second constituent assembly to put their constitution to a referendum—both acts in defiance of the high court. Finally, he used his powers to sack the Mubarak-era prosecutor who had granted regime officials blanket immunity (and who had refused to heed Mursi’s previous calls to resign); the president then called for new trials to hold Murbarak-era leaders accountable for their crimes—this had been a central demand of protesters since the beginning of the uprising. Once the referendum succeeded, Mursi complied therewith, ceding all authority beyond his constitutional mandate back to the legislature and the courts. Nearly two years following the coup against Mubarak a civilian government was finally installed—however, Mursi’s apparent victory would be short lived (as would be the constitution and civilian government voters put into place).
Although Mursi retained his broad authority for little over two weeks, this action (when paired with his confrontational tone) played into the narrative the fulul had been advancing since the beginning of his term: rather than being a tireless champion of democracy who accomplished virtually nothing in his tenure other than establishing a civilian government (as he never exercised much control over the deep state), Mursi was depicted as a tyrant hell-bent on transforming Egypt into the capital of a new caliphate. It should be noted that by any empirical measure, most Egyptians support a strong role for religion in the state; moreover, the opposition would be hard-pressed to point to any major government transformations which actually occurred under Mursi’s tenure—nevertheless, this portrayal formed the basis for an alliance between the liberals and the fulul to depose the president by any means necessary.
An Orwellian propaganda campaign followed: Mursi’s attempts to push the referendum through quickly in order to renounce his sweeping powers as soon as possible without the courts destroying the civilian government were interpreted as the president trying to ram an unpopular constitution down the people’s throats. The constitution was portrayed as being authored by the Brotherhood to the exclusion of everyone else–despite the fact that the Freedom & Justice and al-Nour Islamist parties combined comprised less than a quarter of the second assembly (which ultimately drafted the constitution). The Muslim Brotherhood, a movement which was born in Egypt and comprised the primary (and at times, sole) opposition to the military autocracy, from its inception through the present, was painted as an exogenous Qatari tool for regional domination. Attempts by the president to surround himself with allies as a bulwark against the hostile forces which encircled him throughout his presidency were portrayed as nepotistic measures in the Brotherhood’s grand scheme for total control; accordingly, the Brothers were portrayed as monopolizing authority, despite the fact that the new “civilian government” consisted primarily of the President himself and a handful of advisors, none of whom exerted significant influence over the state’s institutions.
Accordingly, Mursi was unable to meaningfully address Egypt’s other crises—the economic situation deteriorated, spurred on by constant destabilization by liberal activists and nihilistic measures by the deep state, which were specifically designed to discredit the President (as evidenced by the fact that these problems mysteriously evaporated almost immediately after he was deposed). As the exclusive representative of the civilian government, it was easy for state and liberal media to place the blame for Egypt’s dire situation exclusively on Mursi. Among this coalition, there were increasing calls for the SCAF to step in and depose him. The stage was set for the fulul to make a triumphant return.
It is extremely ironic that Mursi’s temporary decree served as the galvanizing force for the opposition: almost immediately after his appointment following Mursi’s ouster, the interim president seized far greater powers for himself, for an indefinite period (already he has wielded them longer than his predecessor). And while Mursi used his authority exclusively to empower a democratically-elected civilian government, al-Mansur used his powers to suspend the constitution, to disband the parliament, to grant the military sweeping authority to curb civil liberties, and to lay the legal foundation for a new dictatorship. And it is Mursi that is decried as a tyrant, while al-Mansur is hailed as a champion of democracy.
3rd Attempt: Success…but for Whom?
In the weeks leading up to June 30th there were increasing meetings between the fulul, the SCAF, and liberal elites (such as Muhammad al-Baradai). There was widespread agreement that Mursi would be deposed—the primary question was how. As in 2011, the elites realized that if they could organize a large-enough mass movement against the president, the SCAF would have the apparent legitimacy to depose him; the army signed on to the plan in advance of the protests (if the recent reports are correct, they were paid $1 billion by Saudi Arabia to commit to the coup and subsequently purge the Brotherhood).
It is now widely known that the massive mobilizations against Husni Mubarak (and indeed, throughout the region) were largely organized and driven by Western-trained and funded activists. It turns out that many of these same figures would go on to found the tamarod movement—albeit this time financed by the fulul and the deep state. In partnership with liberal elites, the self-proclaimed “rebels” began laying the foundations for a new mass mobilization—beginning with a petition for Mursi’s resignation which reportedly garnered 22 million signatures. At the time, few questioned that obtaining this many signatures (amounting to more than 1 out of every 4 Egyptians) in such a short time seems logistically implausible—and of course, no one ever audited this petition to ensure that there were actually 22 million unique signatures, that the signatories were actually Egyptian citizens, nor that the signatures were authentic (both of these should have been significant worries, considering that many of the signatures were supposedly obtained online). Despite these glaring inconsistencies, the petition was uncritically heralded by international media as a popular mandate to remove the president.
Sensing a moment of opportunity, the (Saudi-funded) salafists also signed onto the movement. Given that Egypt is overwhelmingly Muslim, conservative, and devout—and as most Egyptians support a strong role for religion in the state—the salafists stand to benefit the most in any subsequent elections, provided they are free and fair, should the Brotherhood be disposed of (they ranked 2nd behind the Brotherhood in the previous parliamentary elections).
This coalition proved extremely effective: on June 30th, people turned out en masse to express their frustration with Egypt’s stagnation, which was laid at the feet of President Mursi. While they were certainly large, the size of these demonstrations would later be exaggerated by state media, liberal media, and then ultimately by the international media; while the opposition’s claim that tens of millions had mobilized against the president was easily falsifiable, attempts to undermine the narrative were too little, too late: the moment of crisis had been manufactured—it was now left to the SCAF to do its part.
Gen. al-Sisi demanded that “all parties” reach a compromise within 48 hours or the army would be “forced” to step in with its own roadmap. Of course, this “last chance” was a farce (intended to make the army appear reluctant to take control); the decree itself ensured that no such dialogue would ever occur: why would the liberals, deep state, or fulul negotiate with Mursi (whom they despised), when they could simply protest for a couple more days and be rid of him altogether? And hold out they did. Days later, in accordance with his word, Gen. al-Sisi deposed the president, appointing al-Mansur as his interim replacement (al-Mansur, in turn, appointed scores of his fellow fulul to key posts, and charged them with drafting a new constitution). He would later appoint generals from the military and police as governors for 19 out of Egypt’s 27 provinces.
This act was swiftly followed by the forced closing of Brotherhood-friendly media outlets, to include al-Jazeera. The party’s senior leadership was rounded up and incarcerated—most of them continue to be detained without charge (a provision which became conveniently legal under al-Mansur’s interim charter). Violence followed against the rank-and-file Egyptians who refused to accept the SCAF’s decision. Mursi, having been illegitimately detained in the twilight of the Mubarak-era found himself incarcerated once more: his crime? Being liberated from Mubarak’s prison during the 2011 “revolution.”
Contrary to portrayals in international media, these actions were not popular among most Egyptians. In fact, by one scientific poll which was taken around the time of the coup, only 26% of Egyptians favored Mursi’s removal, with 69% opposed. Many of those opposed, in the poll and in the protests, were not Brotherhood members or Mursi sympathizers–instead, Egyptians set against the dictatorship being reinstated, Egyptians who preferred to resolve their problems with the president and his party through the rule of law and the democratic process.
And yet, even as Egypt’s first democratically-elected president languishes in prison, it was announced that a number of charges against the deposed dictator, Husni Mubarak, have been dropped, and he will likely be released from incarceration in the coming days—a development which will likely compound the chaos in Egypt exponentially.