Egypt: Supreme Guide and Army General shadows

Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (top) and the Brotherhood's Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie 

“The Muslims defeated the Islamists” in Egypt.

To my mind, these five words by Walid Abi-Mershed in his column today for Saudi Asharq Alawsat explain the army’s removal of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first Islamist president, after millions of people protested over his leadership.

A scintillating account of the rise and fall of Morsi one year after assuming office comes in this think piece titled “Shadows of the Supreme Guide and Army General” and penned in Arabic by Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of pan-Arab al-Hayat:

Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei went to al-Ittihadiya Palace to meet with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on the latter’s invitation.

The meeting was one-on-one, except that the visitor sensed the presence of others.

He saw behind the president the silhouettes of Mohamed Badie, Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his second-in-command Khairat el-Shater.

Such shadows raise suspicions. The visitor worried about the president resorting to the supreme guide, not the constitution.

That’s why ElBaradei told this (al-Hayat) newspaper, “I met with the president, we had a conversation and I gave up on him.”

Hamdeen Sabahi went to al-Ittihadiya Palace.  The shadows’ insistence on attending the meeting reminded him of his conversation with presidential candidate Morsi during the countdown to the runoffs.

Hamdeen had won some five million votes in the first round and opted out of the presidential race.

Morsi was hoping to woo those voters to secure victory over Ahmed Shafiq in the runoff.

Hamdeen asked Morsi a difficult question: “If you won the presidency, would you be a president independent of the Muslim Brotherhood’s diktats?”

Morsi could not answer and chose instead to offer Hamdeen the post of vice president.

Hamdeen begged off.

Amr Moussa went to al-Ittihadiya Palace and met with Morsi and the two shadows.

Since he emerged from the meeting and monitored the president’s performance, he did not hide his disquiet about the future of Egypt, the native land of Taha Hussein and Naguib Mahfouz that has always been a beacon of hope for its people. Moussa got into such a sweat about Egypt’s spirit.

That was in the lead-up to June 30, which all three men consider to be a landmark day.

They believed early presidential elections were de rigueur to save the country from Morsi’s regime. Clearly, they meant to save it from the big shadow cast on the regime – the shadow of the supreme guide.

Standards and the code of ethics require professional journalists not to fall for the opposition. So we had to make our way to the headquarters of the Freedom and Justice Party, political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.

I asked the party vice chairman Dr. Essam el-Erian if he ever-expected President Hosni Mubarak to fall and Egypt to choose a president from the Muslim Brotherhood.

I liked his answer: “I am confident this pipedream never crossed any Egyptian’s mind. Any Egyptian would be lying if he told you he expected the revolution to succeed or Hosni Mubarak to fall or Mohamed Morsi to become president. Had the era of miracles not been a thing of the past, I would have told you we are living in that era.”

Erian did not seem worried about June 30.

His self-assurance made him say he not only expected Morsi to complete his mandate but could also win a second term.

Erian sounded confident and relaxed and on completion of our conversation he invited my colleague Mohamed Salah and I to the office of party chairman Saad el-Katatni. The later was equally laid-back.

The “January 2011 revolution” took by surprise both the Brotherhood’s supreme guide and the armed forces’ top dog at the time, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi. The two men reacted with aplomb.

Voters then eagerly opted to cast off the shadows of Mubarak and his generals. They ended up with Morsi’s regime and the supreme guide’s shadow.

Morsi failed to dispel the impression that “the supreme guide’s bureau is the president’s president.” His mistakes piled up and the media showed him no mercy.

Fear of “Brotherhood-ization” by millions of Egyptians turned “June 30” into a broad uprising against the president and the shadow lurking in the palace.

In January 2011, Tantawi felt the army had to connect with the public squares.

In June 2013, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi felt the army had to reconcile with them and sponsor them.

The result was a full-blown intifada and a quasi-coup.

The “Brothers” refused to come to terms with the outcome.

They refused to reflect on the reasons that drove millions to public squares to jeer them.

They refused to recognize the implications of the millions of signatures on the Tamarrud petition.

The “Brothers” preferred to aim at Gen. Sisi’s shadow to portray the Brotherhood as the victim and the scapegoat.

When the head of the High Constitutional Court Adly Mansour was sworn in as interim president, they elected to see Gen. Sisi’s silhouette behind him.

Yesterday’s sight of two Egypts facing off in the shadows of the supreme guide and army general was traumatic.

The “Brothers” ventured to take the supreme guide’s shadow into the palace.

Removal of an elected president in a quasi-revolution and quasi-coup is a gamble as well.

There is no solution other than to quickly exit this tunnel and sail into an Egypt in the shadows of a constitution compatible with its spirit and an elected president unbound in his palace by the silhouettes of a supreme guide and an army general. 

Egypt’s chief justice sworn in as interim president

Interim President Mansour (top & center below) was sworn in at the High Constitutional Court

Adly Mansour, head of Egypt’s High Constitutional Court, was sworn in as interim president today after the army ousted and detained Mohamed Morsi, ending the Islamist president’s first year in office.

"I swear by Almighty God that I will uphold the republican system, respect the constitution and the law, uphold the interests of the people, protect the nation’s independence and the safety of its land," the oath said.

Judge Mansour took the oath of office at a ceremony in the High Constitutional Court (HCC), which was broadcast live on national television.

The swearing-in came after armed forces chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced Morsi’s overthrow on state television late on Wednesday, citing his inability to end the country’s deepening political crisis.

In his speech, Gen. Sisi laid out details of the roadmap for a political transition, chiefly:

• Temporary suspension of the current [Islamist-drafted] constitution
• Setting up a committee to amend controversial articles in the provisionally suspended constitution
• Appointment of the head of Egypt's HCC as interim president, pending early presidential elections
• Formation of a new government of technocrats
• Mandating the HCC to hasten the passing of electoral law to allow for parliamentary elections
• Laying down a media code of ethics to guarantee the media's professionalism
• Draw up a committee to foster "national reconciliation."

The security forces meantime began rounding up senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood to which Morsi belongs.

These include the Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie and his deputy Khairat El-Shater, Saad al-Katatni, head of the ousted president’s Freedom and Justice Party, and Rashad al-Bayoumi, another Brotherhood deputy leader.

But army spokesperson Ahmed Ali warned Thursday, “The armed forces will not allow anyone to insult, provoke or abuse those belonging to the Islamist current. They are all Egypt’s sons. The armed forces have the same amount of esteem, respect and love for them as the rest.”

Morsi’s administration unraveled last night after defying the army’s 48-hour ultimatum to come to terms with the opposition.

Morsi’s opponents had accused him of failing the 2011 revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak by concentrating power in the hands of his Muslim Brotherhood.

His supporters say he inherited many problems from a corrupt regime, and that he should have been allowed to complete his term, which was to have run until 2016.

The Cairo stock market gained LE20 billion ($2.85 billion) in the first hours of trading today as Egyptian investors reacted euphorically to news of Morsi's ouster overnight.

U.S. President Barack Obama said he was "deeply concerned" over Morsi’s ouster and urged a swift return to democratic rule.

Syria’s embattled President Bashar al-Assad, fighting to crush a 27-month-old revolt against four decades of rule by him and his late father, said the upheaval in Egypt was a defeat for political Islam.

"Whoever brings religion to use in politics or in favour of one group at the expense of another will fall anywhere in the world," Assad told his state-run al-Thawra newspaper.

"The summary of what is happening in Egypt is the fall of what is called political Islam."

The Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood became one of the most powerful factions behind the mostly Sunni Muslim uprising against Assad, who belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, and is being helped by Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah militia.

Rosana Boumounsef, in her column today for the independent Beirut daily an-Nahar, says Egypt’s second revolution pulls the plug on using the governance of political Islam as a scarecrow.

She writes:

Ironically, in justifying the course of the latest Arab revolutions, the West expected the upheavals to convulse for many years before producing results that fully meet peoples’ aspirations.

Experience and history prove a revolution does not begin and then cool off before ending with parliamentary or presidential elections – especially when such ballots do not fulfill the people’s expectations.

Many diplomats recognize they were thunderstruck when they saw millions of Egyptians take to the streets to get rid of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and challenge Muslim Brotherhood rule.

The diplomats were equally stunned by Egypt’s first [25 January 2011] revolution against President Hosni Mubarak despite international empathy for Egypt’s mounting economic and financial woes.

It is therefore imperative -- in light of Egypt’s second [30 June 2013] revolution -- that the West and its analysts and researchers rethink to the hilt their theories about the region going down the road of militant political Islam.

They fantasized about the Brotherhood’s rise to power in Egypt being replicated in Tunisia, Syria and all eventual Arab Spring countries.

It wasn’t long before they were proven wrong.

Liberals are still a cut above the rest in devout and Muslim Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood did not know how to address Egypt’s multifaceted problems, which are fundamentally economic and administrative. The Brotherhood was caught up in fake successes by laying hands on the seats of power.

The Western powers and Russia will find it difficult from now on to invoke worries that militant or fundamentalist Islamic rule, by the likes of al-Qaeda and its followers, could replace the Syrian regime once agreement is reached on its removal.

Egypt’s second revolution was not only against the Muslim Brotherhood.

It was also a slap in the face of the Obama Administration, which backed and lobbied for the Brotherhood to uphold America and Israel’s interests.