Egypt after the coup

It isn’t over yet

A week after the military coup that overthrew Egypt’s elected Islamist president, the country remains dangerously divided

July 13th 2013

THE words “civil war” pepper many a conversation in Cairo in the wake of the military coup on July 3rd that ousted Muhammad Morsi, a Muslim Brother, after only a year in power. On July 8th the prospect of all-out strife loomed larger after the security forces in Cairo shot dead at least 50 people who had been demanding Mr Morsi’s reinstatement.

Egyptian society remains bitterly divided between a core of Brotherhood backers, who feel cheated, and the millions of people, including secular-minded and liberal Egyptians and quite a lot of religious ones, who wanted Mr Morsi to go. Above all, Egyptians need to agree on a plan to move the country back to democracy. On July 8th the judge appointed by the army as an interim president unveiled a brisk timetable for bringing in a new constitution and for parliamentary and presidential elections. It is bound, at best, to be a bumpy ride.

The opposition is still crowing over Mr Morsi’s demise. Voices calling for the vanquishing of “terrorists”, as the fiercer foes of the Muslim Brothers like to call them, seem louder than those calling for restraint and compromise. On the other side, Mr Morsi’s diehard disciples, fearing for their survival, refuse to consider anything less than his reinstatement, which the generals now in charge are sure to dismiss out of hand. Since July 3rd Mr Morsi’s people have continued to mass in districts of eastern Cairo, where their support is strongest, to protest against the overthrow of their democratically elected president.

The two sides also disagree over who was to blame for the shooting on July 8th outside the Republican Guard Club, where Mr Morsi was said to be held. The actions of the security forces seemed plainly disproportionate, at the least. The interim president, Adly Mansour, called for an inquiry without suggesting its terms, leaving the whiff of a would-be cover-up. The security forces have never hidden their hostility to the Brothers.

In response the Brotherhood’s leaders called for an uprising against the army and its head, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who launched the coup. The public prosecutor then issued arrest warrants for the organisation’s leaders, including its supreme guide, charging them with incitement to violence. Several hundred Brothers, including Mr Morsi, are behind bars, raising the spectre of Egypt’s “deep state”, as the security establishment is known, making a comeback.

Keen to bring back stability and to persuade people that he sincerely wants to cede power as soon as possible, General Sisi moved fast to prod Mr Mansour into setting a rapid return to democracy. Along with his speedy timetable, the interim president issued a set of articles to replace the suspended constitution until a new one is drawn up. He gave ten lawyers a month to amend the constitution, to be reviewed within two months by 50 civil-society figures and put to a national referendum a month later. All being well, parliamentary elections would be followed by a presidential one early in the new year.

Mr Mansour also appointed Hazem al-Beblawi, a 77-year-old economist, as prime minister. Mohamed ElBaradei, a former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, who is now a leader of the secular opposition, has been appointed deputy president during the transition. Mr Beblawi has embarked on negotiations to form a cabinet of technocrats, promising posts to members of the Brotherhood and of the Salafists’ Nour party.

The Brothers have so far rejected Mr Mansour’s proposals in their entirety. Since their senior members have been rounded up and their television stations shut down, they are in no mood for compromise. “All the elections we won have been thrown into the rubbish bin and we have been excluded from the political process, so why would we accept this?” asks Abdullah al-Keryoni, a youth member of the Brotherhood, protesting outside Cairo’s Rabea al-Adawiya mosque.

Meanwhile, the National Salvation Front, a grouping of liberal opposition parties under Mr ElBaradei’s co-chairmanship, said Mr Mansour had not consulted it before making his declaration and would suggest changes. Tamarod (Rebellion), the youth movement that led the protests to oust Mr Morsi, also criticised the sweeping powers reserved for Mr Mansour. And liberals nervously noted the reaffirmation in the interim president’s statement that sharia should be the basis of law, presumably as an inducement to bring the Islamists back into peaceful politics. The Nour party, which had distanced itself from the Brotherhood after the coup, also objected to the content of Mr Mansour’s proclamation.

So further clashes are likely. Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of the al-Azhar mosque and rector of the university of the same name, who is by tradition the leading authority of Sunni Islam, has called for more serious efforts to reconcile the main camps and has warned that Egypt could be heading towards civil war. “The Muslim Brotherhood will adopt self-restraint as a strategy because they know violence allows their opponents to frame them as terrorists,” says Khalil Anani, an Egyptian expert in Islamist movements. “But they may not be able to rein in young members.” The killing of a Coptic priest and violence in Sinai suggest that other groups are keen to stir up trouble.

If the army can reimpose order on the streets with little more bloodshed and start meeting its promises to restore democracy, it will also have to set about rescuing the country’s shattered economy as a matter of extreme urgency. On July 9th Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, pleased to see Mr Morsi go, offered up to $12 billion in cash, deposits and oil—more than the amount given to Mr Morsi by Qatar, his chief financier, during his year-long stint in power. Big business has broadly rallied to the new regime.

But the generals, who performed dismally during their period as caretakers after Mr Mubarak’s fall two-and-a-half years ago, know that millions may come out onto the streets again if they do not move faster and more cleverly than they did before. As street demonstrations subside, Egyptians are holding their breath.