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The Guardian | Wednesday 3 July 2013 International editor: Charlie English Telephone: 020 3353 3577 Fax: 020 3353 3195 Email: international@guardian.co.uk Follow our coverage on Twitter: guardianworld

International

Morsi braced as army deadline runs out

Military poised to suspend Egyptian constitution President was given hours to quell protests
Martin Chulov and Patrick Kingsley Cairo
Egypt is braced for its most decisive day since the revolution that sparked the Arab spring revolts, with its military readying to suspend the countrys constitution and potentially cripple the authority of its rst democratically elected leader, Mohamed Morsi. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces made clear late yesterday that it would stick to an ultimatum it gave to Morsi on Monday that urged the embattled president to respond to a wave of mass protests within 48 hours, or face an intervention which would in eect subsume his government. The military command again claimed that the widely anticipated events would not amount to a military coup. However, according to details of a roadmap for ending the crisis, obtained by Reuters, military commander Abdul Fatah al-Sisi would play a central role in the countrys aairs, installing an interim council of civilians and delaying parliamentary elections until a new constitution was drafted. A senior military source said that scenario was the most likely among those being discussed. Morsi, a leading gure in the Muslim Brotherhood movement, took oce after elections in June last year. His tenure as leader the rst to replace ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak has been plagued by claims that governance under him has been strongly tilted towards his Islamist power base, at the expense of other key stakeholders in Egyptian society. Egypts moribund economy has also taken centre stage since the weekend, which marked the first anniversary of Morsi taking oce, with his government being blamed for chronic fuel shortages and high food prices. Supporters of Morsi have continually denied claims that the government is unrepresentative and yesterday said Egypt would not be driven backwards by the militarys threat to intervene. Rallies were held by pro-Morsi supporters in parts of Cairo, including in Nasr City, and in the north of the country, in which Muslim Brotherhood leaders vowed an allout battle to defend the status quo. There were reports that some men carried burial shrouds at the Nasr City rally to demonstrate the extent of their deance. Any coup of any sort will only pass over our dead bodies, senior Brotherhood ocial Mohamed el-Beltagy said in a speech at a rally on Monday night, calling for families in all Egyptian governorates and villages to be prepared to take to the streets and fill squares to support the president. However, the rallies were dwarfed in both size and fervour by a demonstration at the focal point of Egypts revolution, Tahrir Square, which demanded that Morsi either quit or form a power-sharing government that would sharply diminish the inuence of his support base. Those calling for the end of his presi-

Anti-Morsi protesters in a square in Alexandria yesterday. President Morsi, below, still clings to oce despite an army ultimatum Photograph: Asmaa Waguih/Reuters

The scenarios
Outright military takeover General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypts defence minister, demands that Morsi resign. Morsi refuses. Troops surround the presidential palace and Muslim Brotherhood premises and place Morsi under house arrest along with other senior Brotherhood leaders. Morsi supporters form militias and take to the streets to protest against the counter-revolutionary army coup. But the army, scarred by its unhappy 16-month rule after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak, is reluctant to assume direct power. It prefers to stay in the shadows and mediate. Silent coup Morsi agrees to call new presidential elections. Some Islamist gures have mooted dates ranging from October to January provided they come after new parliamentary elections that the Brotherhood leadership hopes will give them a majority sucient to compose the next government. But that is likely to be far too leisurely a pace for Morsis critics. Another variant is a referendum on whether to hold a new presidential race. The ultra-conservative Sala Noor party supports this. The mass protest movement Tamarod says Morsi must go and wants early elections. Opposition forces say they do not trust any vote held under the Brotherhood. Negotiations and stalemate Morsi, heeding the armys warning about its own roadmap, invites opposition leaders to join a powersharing unity cabinet to promote national reconciliation and review the constitution that was passed last year. Simply shuing the cabinet and appointing a new prime minister is unlikely to assuage public anger. The National Salvation Front leaders Amr Moussa and Nobel laureate Mohammed ElBaradei may want to run for power with military backing or acquiescence. It is hard to see them resiling from their demand that Morsi go. The former air force general Ahmed Shaq may harbour ambitions too after being narrowly beaten by Morsi in a runo last summer. Protests and deadlock look certain to continue. Ian Black

dency include an uneasy alliance of disaected backers, as well as supporters of the former regime many of whom were on opposite sides of a violent divide in the heady months after Mubarak fell. The breadth of opposition to Morsi appears to give him and the Muslim Brotherhood few options in the coming days and sets the scene for either an ignominious defeat or a new phase of violent uncertainty. Even the interior ministry, a staunch supporter of the Mubarak regime and a main protagonist in the clashes that followed, appears to have abandoned him. Morsi has repeatedly oered to speak with his opponents, but has been rebued at every turn by groups who increasingly feel they have little to gain by accepting a dialogue as his problems pile up. Several more key aides and cabinet ministers quit the Morsi government yesterday as the president met General Sisi in the presidential palace. With the two men locked in a long discussion, military helicopters again circled Tahrir Square. The army released video footage taken from the helicopters that showed festive scenes below, in an act that clearly demonstrated the armed forces remained behind the protesters. By nightfall, hours ahead of Sisis expected

announcement, Tahrir Square was once more overwhelmed by demonstrators, who had spilled across a bridge over the Nile. There were reports of sporadic armed clashes in Cairo early yesterday evening, with gunre heard in Giza. However, the centres of both camps remained largely peaceful. Long regarded as a trusted and integral part of Egyptian life, the military has never been far from events during the past two and a half years. It distanced itself from Mubarak as his authority crumbled, then was accused of overplaying its hand during the transitional phase that led to last years elections. Over the last few days, however, it has been widely embraced by an eclectic array of Morsi opponents. I voted for Morsi, but I changed my mind because he didnt live up to what he promised, said Ahmed Mahmoud, 25, in Tahrir Square. If it wasnt for the recent army statement, wed all be in a state of war. Shaima Salah, 28, said the militarys role in any post-Morsi period should be short and limited. The only solution is for the army to lead a very short transitional period, until new presidential elections, she said. But Im worried about the army taking over the state, and Egypt going back to a military kind of government. Seumas Milne, page 29

Analysis A bitter sense of betrayal, a backlash the revolution continues

Jack Shenker Cairo
ew arrivals at Cairo airport are greeted with billboards bearing the rhetoric of a concluded revolution: grainy images of people-power overwritten with congratulatory quotes from foreign leaders, sealed with the logos of mobile phone networks and commercial banks. Yet to the dismay of politicians and corporate executives, it seems Egypts grassroots revolt is refusing to stay in its neatly packaged box. Millions are once again on the streets and it is easy to forget there was ever talk of protest fatigue. Amid the cacophony, commentators have struggled to draw the battle lines in a political landscape that stubbornly resists simple explication. To

understand whats happening in Egypt it is important to distinguish between at least two separate struggles playing out, the outcome of which will shape Egypts revolution for some time to come. The rst is a factional conict within the ruling elite. Since Hosni Mubaraks position was rendered untenable by the popular uprising in January 2011 those elements of the authoritarian state most invested in stability the military, security, plutocrats have worked hard to shield Egypts status quo from the full brunt of revolutionary unrest. From late 2011 onwards that fragmented elite has been joined by higher echelons of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood movement, much to the chagrin of Mubarak-era loyalists whose antipathy towards the Islamists runs deep. The Brotherhoods leaders have done their best to maintain the autocratic nature of Egyptian politics and keep revolutionary demands at bay, but they have a led to a popular backlash.

Rival elements of the state are seizing their chance to piggyback on that grassroots anger and engineer a reshufe at the top. So it is that among those jostling for the departure of Mohamed Morsi, Egypts president, we nd the felool, remnants of the Mubarak regime seeking to reclaim authority and preserve their privileges. But there is another, more critical, struggle unfolding too. This is between those ghting to destroy the old authoritarian system which has denied them political and economic agency, and which plunders Egypts public wealth in the name of private proteers, and arrests, tortures and kills those daring to defy it and those seeking to protect it. The majority of demonstrators have been drawn on to the streets not by a nostalgic yearning for the ancien rgime but by a bitter sense of betrayal over Brotherhood rule. The president, they argue, has surrendered his legitimacy, through incompetence, through oppres-

sion, through a spectacular chain-breaking of promises that he once oered up. Morsi insisted he would reach out to all political factions and heal Egypt; he promised consensus not partisanship, a constitution to reect the national will not the private interests of the Brotherhood, a revolutionary pursuit of social justice and an end to state violence against citizens. It was those promises that handed Morsi the presidency: millions reluctantly gave him their vote because they believed in his commitment to the revolution. He failed on every measure, and now despite those who believe

It seems Egypts grassroots revolt is refusing to stay in its neatly packaged box

democracy is nothing more than a single ballot twice a decade many Egyptians are loth to hang around for another three years to hold him to account and get their revolution back on track. So, we nd ourselves in the surreal situation where many are cheering a new military intervention in to the political arena. Some protesters, remembering the bloodshed delivered by the army in 2011, refuse to cheer. These are people carrying No Mubarak, No Military, No Morsi placards. But they are outnumbered by those who cautiously hope the military can force Morsis departure and bring fresh elections, oering a renewed chance for a more revolutionary candidate. The return of people to the streets, on this epic scale, can be seen as a powerful step forward. Time and again Egyptians have refused to accept elite settlements forced upon them; the Mubarak regime, the junta, now the Brotherhood. All were exposed and rejected by grassroots force.