View Point: The coup in Egypt

We in Pakistan are all too familiar with what has happened in Egypt: military ousting an elected government and putting its leader in prison. It looks a bit different though. Instead of the military chief General Abdel Fatah al-Sissi taking direct control of power, Chief Justice of the country’s Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly Mansour, was sworn in as interim president, the pro-western former head of IAEA Mohammed AlBaradei as vice president in charge of foreign affairs, and the former finance minister, Hazem el Beblawi as prime minister. The purpose is behind the effort is that the coup should not look like a coup and create difficulties for its plotters and abettors.

When the military had given a 48-hour ultimatum to President Mohammad Morsi to reach a settlement with the opposition protesters, American officials had refused to comment on whether the army could legitimately remove an elected president. The State Department spokesperson told a news briefing, “We are not taking sides in this.” The issue, of course, was not about taking sides in a political dispute between the government and the opposition, but showing support for a democratic principle that the military has no business to tell an elected government how to deal with its political opposition, let alone resort to its forcible removal.

Yet it is necessary for Washington to pretend what has happened is not a military take-over, hence the farce of an interim civilian government. The reason is a law under which the US government must cut economic aid to and impose sanctions on countries – like it happened after the 1999 military coup in Pakistan – following military take-overs. Egypt is too important a country for that. Actually, it needs to be saved from democracy in order to prevent popularly elected governments from making independent decisions. Egypt is the second largest recipient, after Israel of, American aid. It gets $1.3 billion annually to remain committed to the separate peace agreement Anwar Sadat signed, brokered by the US, with Israel. The agreement earned him a Nobel Peace Prize but also a lot of unpopularity in the Arab world, leading to his assassination at the hands of an Islamist fundamentalist army officer suspected of having links with the Muslim Brotherhood. His successor, Hosni Mubarak, faithfully protected and preserved the agreement and also imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip after Hamas took control of it, in exchange for US dollars.

Morsi never threatened to break peace agreement with Israel. Conscious of the country’s economic constraints, he followed a moderate policy towards the US and the region’s pro western governments. But the fact that he belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood – even though to a much milder version of the movement – made him unacceptable not only to the US but its regional allies. Little wonder then that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have welcomed Morsi’s unseating. They, of course, have no interest in Egyptian opposition’s concerns about the Muslim Brotherhood’s policies on social issues and minority communities or the ousted president’s high-handed style of governance. They have their own worries about the spread of political radicalism by Islamist movements such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and are even more fearful of the Islamist regime of Iran’s influence.

Morsi lacked experience and sophistication to deal with challenges at hand. He made several mistakes along the way issuing decrees to overrule judiciary’s objections to his actions, delaying ratification of the new constitution, and mishandling the economy. But he also made the mistake of not purging the government, the judiciary and the military of the Mubarak regime remnants. They constantly erected hurdles in his way, prompting him to act badly. It would not be surprising if the Tamarud (rebel) movement that led to the final stand-off and the military’s ultimatum was all an engineered drama aimed at robbing the Muslim Brotherhood of its popular mandate to rule Egypt.

The people who elected President Morsi are still with him despite a brutal crackdown on the Brotherhood activists and the horrific killing of 51 peaceful protesters while they said their morning prayers outside the barracks where the former president is imprisoned. Notably, those calling for his restoration are not only Brotherhood activists and sympathisers, but also those who did not vote for him but believe in genuine democracy. They may not like him, but they understand that legitimate democratic change must come through elections.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the oldest political movement in that country. It represented the only worthwhile opposition to Mubarak’s authoritarian rule. They are not going to go away and let the military play its new games telling them the interim president’s roadmap for elections and a new charter provided “more than enough assurance” that the country is moving in the right direction. The people set the direction only a year ago when in the first democratic election since the days of the Pharos they elected Mohammad Morsi as president. They face a reversal. The alternative, as the example of Algeria shows, could be a disastrous conflict. There the Islamic Salvation Front emerged victorious in the 1991 elections, only to find the military cancel the results and take control of the government banning the party and launching a massive crackdown on its members. The result was a decade long bloody civil war.

That may or may not happen in Egypt. But one thing that many commentators have repeatedly been pointing out is that denying the Islamists the right to rule through ballot will convince them that the only way to ensure success is through an armed revolution, like in Iran. There is the example of Turkey though where Islamists came to power through the ballot. The two countries present an interesting example of how the manner in which the Islamists come to power also determines how they go out of it. In Turkey, there is no doubt that the popularly-elected Justice and Development Party government will step down if it does not win the next election. In Iran, elections are held regularly, but under strict supervision of deeply entrenched clerical rule. There is little chance of change in that country without another revolutionary upheaval. The democratic option obviously is the best bet for change.

saida_fazal@yahoo.com