Category Archives: Egypt

Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Government, Middle East, Politics, Society, United States

Abdulfattah el-Sisi: Egypt’s new political leader…

EGYPT

Once again, Egypt has a senior military officer in charge of the country’s affairs. Field Marshal Abdulfattah el-Sisi, recently promoted from the rank of General, has been elected with the support of 97 per cent of the voters (of a low turnout) and has been inaugurated into office. He officially stood down from his military appointment in contesting the presidency. For the past 60-years, ever since the Free Officers Movement overthrew King Farouk in 1952, the Egyptian government has had a senior military strongman at the helm. Successive leaders – Naguib, Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak – all came from the military, so on that basis el-Sisi’s political victory in now leading his country should come as no great surprise.

For many, though, given the political earthquake and subsequent tremors that have occurred over the past three years, and the way in which power has been handed over, will leave many feeling uncomfortable if not untoward. The high hopes of the Arab Spring and the resulting revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak were undone by the election of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mohammed Morsi’s mandate suggested that the Arab world’s most populous country would become increasingly Islamised, and became a significant factor in his eventual deposition that came in the form of a military coup. But now the Brotherhood is proscribed once more and most of its leaders are in prison.

Whether President el-Sisi is to be remembered as another Arab tyrant will depend on how he utilises his unparalleled position of public dominance. Time will tell – and history will record – whether he is able to reform his country’s anachronistic and decrepit institutions and his ability to convert an inward-looking society into one that is more representative of the modern age. In the short-term, his priorities must be to overhaul the police and judiciary and to end the daily charades of how justice is dispensed in the courts.

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Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Government, Middle East, Politics, United States

Why has the U.S. taken this long to cut aid to Egypt?

U.S. AID TO EGYPT

Washington’s decision to suspend some of its military aid to Egypt is long overdue. By all accounts it should have happened months ago following the military style coup in Egypt that led to the fall of President Mohamed Morsi. America’s decision, however, is still only a symbolic gesture, one that the Obama administration acknowledges will have scant impact on either the regime’s crackdown on the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood or the pace of returning Cairo to democracy. Some commentators may view it as a carefully calibrated balancing act between the need to preserve US interests in the region and the desire to uphold the democratic principles it purports to value.

Had Washington’s decision come three months ago, immediately after the ousting of Mr Morsi, it might have carried some weight. Instead, the American administration refused to use the word coup, and has continued to do so even as it unveiled belated sanctions against the country. At the same time, Egypt’s military-backed regime has moved at its own pace, unhindered and unrestricted in its approach. Yet, whilst measures are being drawn up for a return of normal government – which are likely to be approved in a forthcoming referendum – most of the Brotherhood leadership are behind bars and Islamic media outlets are shut down. Such measures are likely to amount to very little.

Following Washington’s belated reprimand, Cairo announced almost at once Mr Morsi’s trial and declared that Egypt ‘will not surrender to American pressure’.

The US move may even actually boost the regime’s popularity, reducing what many see as a humiliating foreign dependency. Neither will it greatly affect the security balance in the region. Israel is agonised because such a cut in U.S. aid might jeopardise the 1979 treaty upon which its subsequent ‘cold peace’ with Egypt has rested.

The referendum may give the United States a pretext in resuming full military assistance to Cairo, a proviso Washington appears to be calling for. However, this temporary interruption in aid will not only end up pleasing no one, but will demonstrate once and for all how little influence the US wields in the most populous Arab country. To have had any real impact, America should have made its decision months ago.

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Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Government, Middle East, Politics, Society

Egypt’s future hangs by a thread…

HOPE

The present situation in Egypt looks grim, both in the wider picture and in the detail.

Tensions in Cairo remain high following the deaths outside the Presidential Guard barracks on Monday, fatalities which included women and children among the dead. The prospect of any government being formed soon looks extremely remote.

Hazem el-Beblawi, the 76-year-old former finance minister, named last week as the interim Prime Minister, has struggled in his task to form a cabinet. That task has been made more difficult due to the issue of arrest warrants by the state prosecutor for senior figures in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Following the removal of Mohammad Morsi, Egypt’s deposed leader, it was suggested that the priority for the interim administration was to form a broad-based coalition government, and one that was reflective of Egypt’s political diversity. President Morsi had not sought allies beyond his immediate supporters, a crucial reason as to why he was removed following millions who had taken to the streets in protest. It can hardly have been helpful, then, that a slew of new arrest warrants was the best way to go about fostering peace and reconciliation. The Brotherhood’s political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, had already refused to join a unity government – on the not so unreasonable grounds that it had led a democratically elected government that was unlawfully removed.

On Tuesday, the British Foreign Secretary’s statement in the House of Commons highlighted some of the difficulties. Mr Hague has urged Egyptians to move swiftly to hold free and fair elections, as well as working towards openness, democracy and economic reform. Whilst the sound-bites are sensible, they must ring pretty hollow to those Egyptians who thought they already had a freely elected government following the election of Mr Morsi 12-months ago.

Mr Hague also skirted around the uncomfortable fact that the army had seized power and the refusal by some, notably the United States, in referring to the takeover as a coup. The feeling that the Western world promotes and lauds democracy elsewhere, until it produces something they don’t want, will only have been reinforced with what is happening in Egypt.

In the short-to-medium term at least the situation in Egypt seems likely to remain highly problematic. In the unlikely event that all parties and vested interest groups can be persuaded to take part in amending the constitution, approving it in a government-run referendum will undoubtedly leave some to question the authority of any newly formed government – built as it will on the back of an army takeover.

Over the past week, Egypt’s democracy has not been strengthened. Following the carnage on Monday, descent into a Syria-style bloody civil war seemed inevitable. But whilst the confrontation at the Presidential Guard barracks, in which more than 50 people died and dozens of others were injured, it also seemed to shock all sides into stepping back from the brink. It is too soon to be abandoning hope.

Rather than issuing new arrest warrants, the authorities should be exploiting this pause to offer some kind of peace reconciliation – for example, by starting to release detainees.

Egypt’s compelling sense of national identity is a permanent and immovable asset. Unlike many states in the region, it has a common history going back millennia; it has borders that are well defined, and there are no serious challenges from ethnic minority groups. Egypt’s differences are invariably religious and political which, though it doesn’t make them any less sharp, does still leave Egypt’s national identity intact. The interim administration as well as any new government needs to capitalise on this and should provide a roadmap in helping Egypt to complete its revolution.

However untidy Egyptian society has become of late, the taste that many in Egypt have developed over the past two-and-a-half years for freedom and democracy can be a force for good as well as ill. As we have seen it veered all too easily when Mr Morsi was deposed a week ago, into a rule by a discontented mob. Such proof of political engagement, however, could also deter the military from the excesses to which it is prone.

There are slivers of hope for Egypt’s future, but hope is all that is currently on offer.

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