• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

EGYPT TRAPPED: A portrait of Mohamed Mursi, who became Egypt’s first democratically elected president, was placed in barbed wire outside the Republican Guard headquarters in the days after Mursi was overthrown by the army. REUTERS/KHALED ABDULLAH How the Muslim Brotherhood lost Egypt After waiting decades to win control of the country, the movement lost power in a year. Here’s the inside story of what went wrong BY EDMUND Blair, PAUL TAYlor AND TOM PERRY CAIRO, JULY 25 2013 SPECIAL REPORT 1 EGYPT HOW THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD LOST Egypt hen Egyptians poured onto the mood of changing,” Moussa said. Nour had poor intelligence on what was brewing the streets in their millions to gave a similar account, saying Shater did in the streets and the barracks. W demand the fall of President not budge. But he added that the talks Yet many Egyptian and foreign observ- Hosni Mubarak in 2011, few thought they might have started a process of political ers still expected the tightly knit Islamist would return two years later demonstrating compromise had they not been exposed in movement, hardened by decades of repres- for the overthrow of the man they elected the media. sion, to dominate Egypt and the region for to replace him. “(Shater) is a normal person and his a prolonged period, after 60 years of rule by The stunning fall from power of appearance does not do him justice. His army-backed strongmen. Instead, Mursi President Mohamed Mursi, and the appearance gives the impression of myste- was bundled out of office and into military Muslim Brotherhood which backed him, riousness and ruthlessness, but he is well- detention on July 3 amid huge anti-govern- has upended politics in the volatile Middle mannered and gentle,” Nour said. ment protests, barely a year after he became East for a second time after the Arab Spring The dinner on a terrace around the the first democratically elected leader of the uprisings toppled veteran autocrats. swimming pool of Nour’s 8th-floor duplex Arab world’s most populous nation. Some of the principal causes were high- apartment was cut short when journal- Mursi’s failure sends a powerful mes- lighted a month before the army intervened ists got wind of the meeting. Moussa left sage: winning an election is not sufficient to remove Mursi, when two of Egypt’s convinced that the Brotherhood were over- to govern Egypt. Post-Mubarak rulers need most senior power brokers met for a pri- confident, incompetent in government and the acquiescence of the security establish- vate dinner at the home of liberal politician ment and of the population at large. Upset Ayman Nour on the island of Zamalek, a either and your position is not secure. lush bourgeois oasis in the midst of Cairo’s The entire council of the Egypt’s Islamists may draw the bitter seething megalopolis. It was seen by some Guidance Office of the Muslim lesson that the “deep state” will not let them as a last attempt to avert a showdown. Brotherhood was against the wield real power, even with a democratic The two power brokers were Amr presidential nomination. mandate. This report, compiled from in- Moussa, 76, a long-time foreign minister terviews with senior Muslim Brotherhood under Mubarak and now a secular nation- Gehad El-Haddad and secular politicians, youth activists, mili- alist politician, and Khairat El-Shater, 63, a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood tary officers and diplomats, examines four the Brotherhood’s deputy leader and most influential strategist and financier. Moussa suggested that to avoid confrontation, Mursi should heed opposition demands, including a change of government. “He (Shater) acknowledged what I said about the bad management of Egyptian af- fairs under their government and that there is a problem,” Moussa told Reuters. “He was talking carefully and listening attentively.” Shater, a thick-set grizzly bear of a man who is now in detention and cannot tell his side of events, replied that the government’s problems were due to the “non-cooperation of the ‘deep state’” – the entrenched inter- ests in the army, the security services, some of the judiciary and the bureaucracy, ac- cording to Moussa’s account. “The message that I got after one hour was that OK, he would discuss with me, DISQUALIFIED: Khairat El-Shater, deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, was barred from agree with some of my arguments, dis- standing for president, leading to the unexpected choice of Mohamed Mursi instead. REUTERS/ agree with the rest, but they were not in MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY SPECIAL REPORT 2 EGYPT HOW THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD LOST Egypt turning points on Egypt’s revolutionary road: the Brotherhood’s decision to seek the presidency; the way Mursi pushed through the constitution; the failures of the secular opposition; and the military’s deci- sion to step in. Mursi and some senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders, who have been held incommunicado since the coup, could not be reached for comment. With the Brotherhood angrily resist- ing its eviction from power, the prospects of Egypt’s second transition to democracy being smoother than the first look slight. This time, the army says it does not wish to exercise power directly as it did in 2011- 12 after Mubarak’s fall. But few doubt that armed forces commander General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who planned Mursi’s over- throw and has since been promoted to MILITARY POWER: Egypt’s armed forces chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, pictured on a poster held deputy prime minister as well as minister by a protester, acted after mass demonstrations called for the removal of the president. of defence, is the man now in control. REUTERS/MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY TO RUN OR NOT TO RUN? In the immediate aftermath of Mubarak’s that was not sufficient to pass or implement vote from the grass roots up, even that vote.” overthrow, the Brotherhood had no inten- legislation. An army council kept the keys Opponents argued that the quest for tion of ruling. It reassured secular Egyptians to power. executive power was premature and would and the army by promising publicly not to As the frustrations grew, some mem- fuel suspicion and hostility towards the seek the presidency or an outright parlia- bers of the Brotherhood – particularly the Brotherhood, which had long pursued a mentary majority. young – began to press for the movement to patient, gradualist strategy. “I met Shater three times in 2011/2012 change its stance and bid for the presidency The issue came to a head at a marathon and each time it was clear that the po- and the executive power it would bring. closed-door meeting of the Brotherhood’s litical appetite was growing, but the first “The entire council of the Guidance Shura Council at its four-storey headquar- time he was extremely explicit that the Office of the Muslim Brotherhood was ters in the hill-top Moqattam disctrict that Brotherhood would not seek political pow- against the presidential nomination,” said overlooks Cairo from the south. er right away,” said U.S. academic Nathan Gehad El-Haddad, 31, one of the leading “We remained for three days, debating, Brown, a leading expert on Egypt at the young Islamists. So Haddad and 16 other each team giving the justifications of the Carnegie Endowment for International youth activists exploited Facebook and opinion it had, whether accepting or reject- Peace. “He was very clear to the reasons: the Twitter to change minds. ing. And when the vote happened, the de- world’s not ready for it, Egypt’s not ready “We lobbied, the youth of the Muslim cision was just by three or four votes,” said for it, and – the phrase he kept using – the Brotherhood, we literally lobbied. We put Essam Hashish, 63, a university engineer- burdens of Egypt are too big for any one up a chart of the Shura council members ing lecturer and Shura member. political actor. Those turned out to be very and decided which ones to pressure to It was one of the most closely contested sound judgments but he abandoned them.” change their vote,” the British-educated votes in the history of the movement and Events began to take on a momentum activist, now the movement’s spokesman, went to three rounds. Just 56 of the 108 of their own. The Brotherhood won con- said in a midnight interview at a pro-Mursi members voted on the decisive ballot to put trol of parliament in alliance with smaller protest camp outside a mosque in eastern up a candidate for president, while 52 voted Islamist and independents, but soon found Cairo. “The Muslim Brotherhood takes its against. After that, support for Shater as SPECIAL REPORT 3 EGYPT HOW THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD LOST Egypt the Brotherhood’s candidate for president became overwhelming. Egypt’s ailing economy The Islamists had earlier looked at nom- inating someone outside their movement, TOURIST NUMBERS HAVE DECLINED approaching respected judges Ahmed Mekky and Hossam Gheriyani, who had 2009/2010 13.76 million stood up to Mubarak. Both declined. 2010/2011 11.93 million Insiders said Shater’s charisma and am- bition were key factors. The furniture and 2011/2012 10.95 million shopping mall magnate was the dominant politician in the movement, described by col- leagues and foreign diplomats as a powerful, WHILE UNEMPLOYMENT IS UP pragmatic negotiator used to getting his way. Percent But his candidacy was short-lived. The 2009 9.4 electoral commission, headed by a Mubarak 2010 9.2 appointee, disqualified him on the grounds that he had been convicted of a criminal of- 2011 12.1 fence in 2007, even if the charges seemed Estimates 2012 12.3 politically motivated.

Load more

  10

Copy Link