The overthrow of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi could change the nature of Arab revolutions

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is removed from power as a result of a military coup. The duties of the head of state until early elections will be performed by the sworn-in former chairman of the Constitutional Court, Adli Mansour. Following the ouster of Mohamed Morsi, who was placed under house arrest, security forces struck at the former Islamist president's base, the Muslim Brotherhood movement. The widespread arrests of the Brotherhood have bled dry the organization that advocated turning Egypt into an Islamic state. The overthrow of President Morsi could be a turning point in all the revolutions of the Arab Spring, allowing supporters of a secular state to seize the initiative from the Islamists.

The military, which previously defended Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi (center), now has a hand in removing him from power
Photo: Reuters

A military coup in Egypt, the scenario of which became more and more realistic as the 48-hour army ultimatum to Islamist President Mohamed Morsi expired (see yesterday's Kommersant ), occurred on Thursday night. The removal of the head of state, elected to this post on June 30 last year, was announced by Defense Minister Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi - the same security official who first issued an ultimatum to the president, and then posted on Facebook a statement from the army leadership, who vowed to “die to protect the nation.” from terrorists, extremists and ignoramuses."

Shortly after the ultimatum expired on Wednesday evening, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi issued a new statement, saying that the army had removed President Morsi from office and suspended the constitution adopted during his reign. The military entrusted the head of the Constitutional Court, Adli Mansour, who worked in his previous post for only a month, to act as head of state for the transition period - until the holding of early presidential elections (the date of which has not yet been announced).

Mohammed Morsi himself, who had given a 46-minute speech on national television the day before, was deprived of mobile communications, placed under house arrest, and then moved to the headquarters of the Republican Guard. The July 3 address, in which he vowed to “defend legitimacy at the cost of his own life,” was the last opportunity for the president to detail his views on the situation in the country to the nation. The only thing Mr. Morsi managed to do after the coup was to post a short message on his Twitter page in which he called what happened a “real coup” and called on the Egyptians not to submit to the military, but to act through peaceful means.

Protests in Egypt

And soon after this, the newly sworn-in leader, Adly Mansour, addressed the Egyptians. In his address, he proposed new rules of the game to the Muslim Brotherhood movement, whose protégé was the ousted president. Calling on the Islamists to “take their place in the building of the Egyptian nation,” Adly Mansour made it clear: from now on, the role of the Islamists will be determined by the new government. “If the Muslim Brotherhood respond positively to the invitation, we will gladly accept them,” he promised.

Following the new head of state, the leaders of secular parties also declared yesterday that the isolation of the Muslim Brotherhood is unacceptable. However, the security forces were determined and not at all peaceful. They launched a pre-emptive strike against supporters of the former Islamist president. Yesterday, the prosecutor's office issued an arrest warrant for the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Badii, and his deputy, Khairat al-Shatyr, who is responsible for the Brotherhood's finances. Before his arrest, al-Shatyr managed to make an entry on Twitter, calling on his supporters to “resist the conspiracy” and calling what was happening “a counter-revolution financed by functionaries of the former regime of Hosni Mubarak.”

The Brotherhood's top leadership is accused of organizing riots near the movement's headquarters in Cairo that broke out this week and resulted in casualties. Yesterday, the former speaker of parliament, chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party (the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood), Saad al-Qatatni, and another of its leaders, Rashad al-Bayoumi, were also arrested. They were placed in the same Tora prison where ex-President Hosni Mubarak and his sons are being held. In total, the prosecutor's office issued arrest warrants for over 300 activists of the former party in power. In addition, the military deprived the Muslim Brotherhood of access to the airwaves, interrupting the broadcast of all television channels controlled by them.

It is noteworthy that after the widespread arrests, the tone of the Muslim Brotherhood's statements became much more restrained. If on the eve of the coup they threatened “major bloodshed” if there was an attempt to remove the president, now the Islamists have actually backed off. A statement issued by the Brotherhood yesterday states that the movement “refuses to cooperate with the new authorities,” but at the same time “does not intend to enter into military confrontation with the usurpers.”

The anti-Islamist coup that took place in Egypt could have far-reaching consequences for the entire Middle East region, which is engulfed in revolutions against authoritarian regimes. “At the very beginning of the Arab Spring, experts predicted that the results of the revolutions would not be taken advantage of by liberal forces, but by more united and organized Islamists. I also adhered to this point of view, keeping in mind the results of the elections in Palestine and the bloody events in Algeria in the 1990s. And elections in Tunisia and Egypt confirmed these forecasts. And generalizations have already begun to emerge - any revolution in the Muslim Arab world will end with the construction of a theocratic state or the desire for this construction,” Mikhail Margelov, head of the Russian Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, reminded Kommersant.

And yet this trend has not become dominant. “In Algeria, a secular coalition led by the National Liberation Front won the 2012 elections. And today in Egypt, the power of President Morsi has fallen. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and other countries will not go anywhere, and it is obvious that they will be driven underground again , will not succeed. But this movement did not live up to hopes for democratic governance and the removal of socio-economic problems. In addition, the scale of the demonstrations against Morsi shows: the majority of the Egyptian population, at least the urban population, does not want a theocratic regime,” Mr. Margelov is convinced. In his opinion, the events in Egypt refute the point of view about “the inevitability of the triumph of theocracy as a result of democratic revolutions in the Arab world.”

Sergei Strokan

Newspaper "Kommersant Ukraine" No. 110 dated 07/05/2013, p. 4

Authors:

Sergei Strokan

Islamists turned to secularism