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| Ms Hadidi interviewing Heikal last night (top and bottom) and a call for Morsi "to go" |
The battle lines are drawn for post-June 30 Egypt.
The opposition is billing June 30 as President
Mohamed Morsi’s last day in office -- “but we don’t have an inkling of what
comes next,” says Mohamed Hassanein
Heikal.
Egypt and the Arab world’s leading journalist and
commentator for 50 years was talking last night to
CBCEgypt TV anchor Lamis
Al Hadidi.
Egypt’s prominent media figure Emad Adeeb wrote
earlier for ElWatanNews,
“I don’t believe June 30 and the days leading to the [July 10] beginning of Ramadan will pass peacefully. With
great regret, I smell blood.”
With the Sunday showdown approaching, this is my abridged
version of a curtain raiser penned by Ahmed
Maher for BBC News:
Morsi promised when he was inaugurated a year ago to
give Egypt a face-lift in just 100 days.
One
year on, he faces widespread discontent as much of the country is seething with
anger and frustration over the perceived failure of the president to tackle any
of the country's pressing economic and social woes.
And
from the beginning of his four-year term, Morsi has fallen out with key
institutions, chiefly the judiciary, police, media and more recently artists…
The
opposition accuses the president and his group, the Muslim Brotherhood, of
trying to Islamize the state and of giving the Islamists a monopoly over key
public institutions.
In
return, hundreds of thousands of Islamists rallied for Morsi in Cairo last
week, symbolizing Egypt's increasing polarization.
They
dismissed the anti-Morsi campaign as unconstitutional as the president does
have electoral legitimacy.
Many
locals fear the protests on Sunday will turn into bloody showdown between both
camps.
Fearing
the worst, the Egyptian army has deployed reinforcements of troops and armored
vehicles to strategic locations across the country, chiefly the main
presidential palace in Cairo.
As
political rivals lock horns over the "Brotherhood-ization" and
"secularization" of the nation, opinion polls point out to the
mounting public discontent.
A
new poll by the Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research (Baseera) indicated
a sharp decline in the president's approval ratings to 32% compared with 78% at
the end of the first 100 days of his tenure.
Public
anger is soaring over expanding power cuts, water cut-offs in some districts
and falling living standards.
Fuel
is in short supply as well. So is patience.
For
the millions of poor, it is the stagnant economy -- caught in collapsed sources
of income like tourism, rising food prices and a growing population dependent
on subsidized bread -- that matters.
Foreign
currency reserves are half of what they were under Hosni Mubarak and the value
of the Egyptian pound has fallen by 10% against the U.S. dollar since last
year.
Almost
daily strikes by angry civil servants and factory workers demanding better
conditions have also become a fact of life.
The
president says he has been left with no options but to rely on Muslim
Brotherhood members and Islamist allies after the opposition turned down his
national reconciliation endeavors.
The
opposition, in turn, says Morsi's calls for dialogue are never sincere and
insist on early elections.
With
the circle tightening around him, the president gave a televised marathon
speech on Wednesday night in a bid to upstage the massive demonstrations
planned by the opposition on Sunday.
In his interview with Ms Hadidi last night, Heikal
gave this feedback on Morsi’s televised speech 24 hours earlier:
The
president was unclear as to what he intends offering or doing.
He
substantiated Egyptian society’s polarization by choosing to sound like a party
leader. You can’t speak as a part leader when addressing an invited audience of
state officials. The party is one thing and the state is another.
The
president we saw on screen (Wednesday night) looked baffled, yet his words
resonated with drumbeats of war.
I think Morsi
is under immense pressure. At the same time, the office of president has taken
his breath away. For instance, he kept repeating, “I am Commander in Chief of
the Armed Forces and Police…”
His attack
on the media was totally misplaced. It showed him fighting the wrong battle at
the wrong place and time, the country being already stirred up.
Because of
its poor political performance in office, the Brotherhood-Islamist partnership has
seen its popularity-rating plummet to 30% from 60% in the last parliamentary
elections.
The reason
for this, I think, is the Muslim Brothers’ misplaced arrogance. I saw them when
downtrodden first and then arrogant. Some of them now sound more pompous than
Queen Victoria.
Morsi
expressed a compassionate concern for the poor, but failed to give them hope in
the future.
“Pre-emptive
demonstrations” organized by the Muslim Brotherhood and fellow-Islamist in the
countdown to June 30 are misguided.
The role
of a regime is to persuade people with deeds, not muscle and rhetoric. A ruling
party does not kick-off bolstering its position with “political armies.”
Morsi was
unclear about what he intends doing and how. I don’t understand, for example,
how he can complain about inheriting a debt-ridden economy and then go out and
borrow more to settle the national debt.
Also a
head of state does not publicly criticize Ahmad Shafiq when legal proceedings
against the presidential runner-up remain pending.
In truth,
the Muslim Brothers assumed power and offered nothing. They simply kept leaping
in the dark. And the wrong steps they took over the past four weeks risk
plunging the country in civil war.
The Egyptian
army is the people’s -- not the Emir’s – army. It is Egyptian nationalism’s
godfather and brainchild. Its latest statement sounded the alarm, saying we are
all at risk.
The Supreme Guide of the Muslim
Brotherhood ought to come forward and address the people in person because
what is taking place in Egypt gives the lie to the modern state and to
transparency. Governing the country out of sight of the public is
impermissible. Whoever holds the strings of power must be called to account by
the public.
