Egypt’s Army Remains the Ultimate Arbiter of Power

Egypt’s first modern revolution, carried out by Gamal Abdel Nasser and his fellow “free officers,” overthrew the monarchy and ushered in the first republic in 1952. The army’s actions in 2011 allowed Hosni Mubarak to fall without mass bloodshed. Now the military is moving again to “save” the country from its squabbling politicians.

Jubilant cheers from the crowds in Tahrir Square when the news broke of the army’s demarche underlined the positive response from those protesting against President Mohammed Morsi. It was hardly the way people would react to the sort of military coups that took place all over the Arab world in the second half of the 20th century. Morsi’s supporters, and others, see it as a disastrous throwback to pre-revolutionary days.

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the defence minister, was careful to spell out what he was and wasn’t prepared to do in a TV statement broadcast to the nation. Laying down a “road map for the future” is one thing – while calling for an “inclusive” process that will force an end to the paralysing rift between the Muslim Brotherhood and its opponents – but the army would not itself get directly involved in politics and government, he insisted.

Sisi conspicuously failed to call on the president to step down – though his 48-hour ultimatum clearly suggests that could yet happen. It was a stark reminder that for all the drama, sacrifices and high-flown aspirations of the Egyptian revolution, the army remains the ultimate arbiter of power. The patriotic music playing in the background provided its justification – to itself and others.

Critics will be quick to conjure up the spectre of Algeria in 1991 when the generals stepped in to cancel a second round of elections an Islamist party had been poised to win. The difference is that Egypt has had its election – won by the Brotherhood. The fear now, perhaps being deliberately exaggerated in a dangerously charged and polarised atmosphere, is that Algerian levels of violence will follow.

The Brotherhood’s anger at this move reflects a sense that they have been outmanoeuvred by the soldiers they thought they had neutralised. Only last summer the newly elected Morsi won plaudits for moving swiftly and effectively against the Mubarak-era commanders of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) – and appointed Sisi to underline civilian control over the army.

Still, the two sides have maintained a partnership of sorts in the long and messy transition to Egypt’s rickety and dysfunctional democracy. The army is ideologically aligned with the secular opposition but the Brotherhood remains the most organised civilian body in the country – a legacy of the authoritarian decades of stunted political life and rigged elections. And the army has managed to maintain its privileges and huge economic interests as well as its strategically vital relationship with the US military and the Pentagon. Monday’s comments by President Barack Obama sounded distinctly approving of its intervention.

If the army has been reluctant to take on overtly political and governmental responsibilities – and it did not relish the period of Scaf rule between Mubarak’s fall and last summer’s presidential election – it is certainly happy to wield power behind the scenes. That reflects the way it sees itself, in the words of the Palestinian scholar, Yezid Sayigh, as “an autonomous institutional actor with a privileged political role”.

That much was clear last December in the run up to the constitutional referendum. Sisi invited Morsi, ministers and a wide spectrum of political and public figures to what he called a “social dialogue” – an unmistakably political act that was taken without consultation with either the president or the cabinet.

In the past, the army has also intervened in limited, tactical ways. But Sisi warned explicitly on 23 June that it would step in if clashes between government and opposition supporters span out of control and threatened to lead the country into “a dark tunnel of conflict”. With the sustained mass protests of the Tamarod (Rebellion) movement that moment has now arrived. Egypt’s soldiers have taken their country’s fate into their hands again.

About the Writer:

Ian Black is the Guardian’s Middle East editor. In more than 25 years on the paper he has also been its European editor, diplomatic editor, foreign leader writer and Middle East correspondent

Source: The Guardian