Ousted President Morsi
Egypt’s military deposed the country’s first democratically elected
President, Mohamed Mursi, Wednesday night after he failed to meet
demands to share power with opponents, who thronged the streets of
Cairo, state-run media reported.
Troops moved into key positions around the capital and surrounded a
demonstration by Mursi’s supporters in a Cairo suburb as a 48-hour
ultimatum from the generals expired.
Citing an unnamed presidential source, the state-run newspaper,
Al-Ahram, reported that “the General Command of the Armed Forces told
President Mursi around 7pm. that he is no longer a president for the
republic.”
The state-run Middle East News Agency reported Wednesday night that
leaders of the country’s Muslim and Christian communities would join
military leaders and opposition figures to lay out an agreement “to exit
the current political crisis.”
The report came shortly after a deadline issued by the generals to
Egypt’s first democratically elected leader expired. At the final hour,
Mursi offered to form an interim coalition government “that would manage
the upcoming parliamentary electoral process, and the formation of an
independent committee for constitutional amendments to submit to the
upcoming parliament,” Mursi said in a posting on his Facebook page.
He noted that hundreds of thousands of supporters and protesters had
packed plazas around the country, and he urged that his countrymen be
allowed to express their opinions through the ballot box.
“One of the mistakes I cannot accept — as the president of all
Egyptians — is to side with one party over another, or to present the
scene from one side only. To be fair, we need to listen to the voice of
people in all squares,” the statement read.
But as night fell Wednesday, Egyptian troops were taking control of
key points around the capital and surrounded a pro-Mursi demonstration
at a Cairo mosque. Gehad El-Haddad, a spokesman for the Muslim
Brotherhood, reported via Twitter that tanks were on the streets.
Mursi was said to be working from a complex belonging to the
country’s Republican Guard, across the street from the presidential
palace, according to Egyptian state media. Reuters reported that troops
were setting up barricades around that facility.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the US
government – Egypt’s leading ally – could not confirm reports of a coup.
Psaki said the US was not taking sides and urged all parties to come to
a peaceful resolution to the “tense and fast-moving” situation.
An aide, Essam El Haddad, said in a Facebook posting that a coup was
under way and warned that the generals risked bloodshed by moving
against Mursi.
“Today, only one thing matters. In this day and age, no military coup
can succeed in the face of sizable popular force without considerable
bloodshed,” wrote El Haddad, who works in the office of the Assistant to
the President on Foreign Relations. “Who among you is ready to shoulder
that blame?
“In a democracy, there are simple consequences for the situation we
see in Egypt: The president loses the next election or his party gets
penalised in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Anything else is mob
rule,” he added.
But Naguib Abadeer, a member of the opposition Free Egyptians Party,
said what was under way “is not by any means a military coup. This is a
revolution.”
“The people have decided that Mursi was no longer the legitimate leader of Egypt,” he told CNN.
Abadeer said Mursi lost his legitimacy in November, when he declared
courts could not review his decrees and ousted the country’s
prosecutor-general. He said Mursi’s supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood
– the Islamist movement that propelled Mursi to the presidency –
“hijacked the vote of the people” by running on a religious platform,
“so these were not democratic elections.”
Mursi had vowed Tuesday night that he would not comply with the
military’s 48-hour ultimatum and demanded that the armed forces stand
down.
“If the price of upholding this legitimacy is my own blood, I am,
therefore, ready to sacrifice my blood for this country and its
stability,” he said.
But political analyst Hisham Kassem said the speech was Mursi’s “final bluff.”
“He was trying to give the impression ‘We are there in numbers, and
we are going to retaliate, we are not going to allow this to happen.’
However, with almost 24 hours since his message, it’s clear his
supporters will not dare challenge the crowds on the street,” Kassem
said.
He added, “I think President Mursi effectively is no longer running
the country.” And faced with the throngs that filled Cairo’s Tahrir
Square, “the military had to intervene. Otherwise this crowd was going
to get Mursi from his palace.”
Reuters and several other news organisations reported that Egyptian
troops had “secured the central Cairo studios of state television” as
the deadline approached and that staff not working on live shows had
departed.
CNN has not confirmed the reports; state television denied in an
on-air banner that there was any additional military presence at its
studios.
Massive demonstrations for and against the former Muslim Brotherhood
leader who was elected to office a year ago, have been largely peaceful.
But 23 people died, health officials said, and hundreds more were
injured in clashes overnight at Cairo University, the state-funded
Al-Ahram news agency reported.
Protest leaders have called for non-violence.
Egypt’s military met Wednesday with religious, national, political
and youth leaders to address the crisis, Egyptian military spokesman
Ahmed Ali said through his Facebook page.
Hours earlier, an opposition spokesman accused the United States of propping up Mursi out of concern for neighboring Israel.
“The hour of victory is coming,” said Mahmoud Badr of the Tamarod
opposition group. He predicted that the “illegitimate president” would
be gone by the end of the day.
“Not America, not Mursi, not anyone can impose their will on the Egyptian people,” Badr said.
With the ultimatum, the armed forces appeared to have thrown their weight behind those opposed to Mursi’s Islamic government.
Early Wednesday, soldiers and police set up a perimeter around the
opposition’s central meeting point, Cairo’s Tahrir Square, “to secure it
from any possible attack,” the state-run EgyNews agency reported.
It was the police who, on the same spot in 2011, killed hundreds when
they fired upon democratic, moderate and Islamic demonstrators seeking
to overthrow Hosni Mubarak, the country’s longtime autocratic leader and
US ally.
Mubarak had repressed the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic political
movement, that emerged as the nation’s most powerful political force
once Mubarak was ousted.
At a pro-democracy protest in Cairo, demonstrators expressed anger and fear over what the coming hours could bring.
The Muslim Brotherhood spokesman, Gehad El-Haddad, told CNN that
tanks and armored vehicles – accompanied by thugs carrying knives,
pistols and ammunition – had been moved to the northern and southern
entrances of the square in an apparent attempt to drive them out.
The military fired warning shots into the air, and shot one Muslim
Brotherhood member in the leg, El-Haddad said, but the remaining
protesters were standing in defiance in front of the tanks.
Some of the protesters oppose Mursi but also oppose pushing from
power a democratically elected leader, he said. “Under no circumstances
will we ever accept a military-backed coup,” he said.
