If Egypt's army had wanted to disguise the fact that what they had just done was carry out a military coup, they made a poor job of it. Without mentioning Mohamed Morsi by name, the head of the army General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi effectively declared the removal of Egypt's first democratically elected president by appointed the head of the supreme constitutional court as interim head of state. No one in Egypt knows who this man Adli Mansour is. But he will be the face, or rather the fig leaf, of the people who write constitutional decrees.
Gen Sisi called for presidential and parliamentary elections and a panel to review the constitution, but no timelines were given. Nor could any comfort be gained from the politicians and religious leaders sitting next the military junta. Two of them, Ahmed al-Tayeb, grand sheikh of al-Azhar, Cairo's highest seat of Islamic learning and the Salafist Nour party were the cause of the worst confrontation the ousted Muslim Brotherhood had with secular liberals over the interpretation of sharia in the new constitution. Now they are on the other side, their fundamentalist interpretations will become the new regime's problems.
Liberal this new regime is not. Its first act was to shut down five television stations, who were covering the growing demonstrations of Muslim Brotherhood supporters. A sixth channel, an offshoot of al-Jazeera called al-Jazeera Misr, was raided, and its journalists arrested. Speaking shortly after Sisi's announcement the liberal opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei declared that the 2011 revolution was relaunched. Tahrir Square erupted in celebration. It may well be short-lived, because what really happened in Egypt was that it went back two years. With Morsi gone, the old regime is back where they want to be, pulling the levers of power. It is now only a matter of time before the loser of the last presidential election, Ahmed Shafiq comes back from exile.
Egypt: throwing the ballot box out the window | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian
