16 février 2012
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/2012
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- Egypt readies for another storm
A year after Mubarak stepped down, activists are mobilising to end persistent uncertainty over Egypt's transitional phase, Dina Ezzat reports -
On 11 February, the day after tomorrow, masses of Egyptians will gather in Tahrir Square and across the nation to commemorate the day when the three-decade rule of ousted president Hosni Mubarak came to an end, along with the succession scenario lined up for his son, Gamal Mubarak. The main focus on Saturday, however, will not be the past, but rather the future, specifically an unprecedented call for what could be an indefinite period of civil disobedience to pile up pressure on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) for a speedy transfer of power a year after taking over from Mubarak.
The idea of a general strike and civil disobedience was floated by several political forces and trade unions -- save the big majority of the mainstream Islamist parties and movements that warned against the impact of such a boycott on the already deteriorating economic, social and services situation.
"This will lead to a disintegration of the country," a statement by the Muslim Brotherhood cautioned.
SCAF has not made public its stand regarding the campaign.
It is not yet clear how big the response to the call will be or for how long it will continue. But one thing is certain: the call for an end to SCAF's rule is becoming a pressing political demand.
For some of those who took to Tahrir Square since 25 January, marking the day when massive demonstrations started last year, the next three days are about building up as wide a consensus as possible among all political forces, even between liberals and Islamists, who do not enjoy the strongest rapport, to unify the call: Down with military rule and Yes for early presidential elections, to be followed by the drafting of a constitution outside of the control or direct intervention of SCAF.
"It has been a year since the 25 January Revolution forced Mubarak to step down and we are still faced with the same argument that Mubarak put forward when the revolution started: either this regime, or chaos," said Mohamed El-Sayed Idris, a member of the parliament and political expert.
While Mubarak and his immediate entourage are standing trial, Idris said, remnants of the Mubarak regime are still acting to liquidate the revolution and allow for the regime to be reconstituted, even if Mubarak is no longer at its head. "Those who plan are still there, and so too those who finance and execute. They have been plotting against the revolution while the forces of the revolution have been busy initiating political parties, pursuing parliamentary elections and arguing with or at times fighting each other," Idris added.
For Idris, the political scene in Egypt now is "disturbingly clouded" with no clear picture of where things are headed.
For Gamal Abdel-Gawwad, former head of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, the current situation is not just one of confusion but great political turmoil that "could take things to a point of no-return". "What we are seeing today is a situation of arm twisting among all the concerned parties, to the point at which it might look very difficult to get a compromise that could accommodate the demands -- or some of the demands -- of the parties," Abdel-Gawwad argued.
SCAF, the forces of the revolution, public opinion, the Muslim Brotherhood, the remnants of the Mubarak regime are all at war with one another, argued Abdel-Gawwad. Meanwhile, parliament is caught up in internal arguments between dominant Islamist MPs and liberals "who clearly feel marginalised". In this context of polarisation, Abdel-Gawwad is not sure that an exit can be found, or that even the search for one can start.
The call for consensus building has been gaining support during the past few days, according to many political activists. The aim, they say, is to send a clear message to SCAF that the only way out of the current state of affairs is for the ruling authorities to advance the date of presidential elections and of the power handover. "We want very clear dates. The recent announcement of the advancement of the date for the registration of presidential candidates to 10 March is not good enough," said Wael Khalil, a leading activist of the 25 January Revolution.
Khalil is convinced that if the pressure is enough on 11 February, SCAF will hear the message and act on it. "Previous experiences show that when the call is strong and unified the message is heard," he said.
Today, George Ishak, one of the early leading figures of the anti-Mubarak and anti-succession fight, is confident that the current round of talks among admittedly polarised political forces will produce an earlier than 1 July handover of power, unless SCAF is ready for a long phase of political confrontation. SCAF, in the view of some leading political figures and advisors to several presidential hopefuls, might not have fully accepted that the time has come for it to comply with the demand for a prompt end to a year-long transitional phase that SCAF itself promised would be no more than six months.
The change of the chant in Tahrir Square from "The army and the people are one hand" to "The people want to topple military rule" cannot be ignored by SCAF, political figures -- including some who confer with SCAF -- suggest. The only remedy to the current breakdown of confidence is for an elected president to take over, especially that the elected parliament has dramatically failed to live up to the expectations of the people, especially in regard to pressing popular demands, like improving security.
The performance of parliament in the wake of the Port Said massacre where some 74 football fans were killed in stadium under the eyes of a non-functioning police presence, according to Mohamed Othman, a volunteer at the presidential campaign of ex-Muslim Brotherhood member Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh, is a great disappointment. For activists, this performance goes only to show that the current parliament cannot provide an exit from the current state of polarisation, chaos and confusion, and if anything adds to it.
"However, the election of a president is not in and of itself the remedy to the ailments we have sustained over the year, but it is a way by which you have an executive head answerable directly to the people who put him in office on the fulfilment of the demands of the revolution regarding social justice and democracy," said Othman.
But as Othman, Khalil, Ishak and Idris all argue, presidential elections can only be held in a context where security is guaranteed.
"Security will not be attained and cannot be attained with the current leading generals and the current mechanism of the Interior Ministry, simply because the current leaders of the ministry are part of the Mubarak regime who still decline to succumb to the call of the revolution," said Khalil.
Khalil and Ishak insist that time is over for "talking" about reconstituting the Interior Ministry and "purging the elements of the Mubarak regime" from it. The time, they say, has come to "pressure" for immediate reform.
For presidential hopeful Amr Moussa, fixing the ailment of insecurity is the number one item on a list of seven items he proposed during a press conference held earlier this week on stopping "a potential societal explosion" as a result of frustration "over the poor management of the transitional phase". The speeding up of presidential elections is number six for Moussa, who insisted that what counts most is for the people and the forces of the revolution to have faith that their demands will be met and not bypassed.
"The coming four days are crucial in attempting to streamline the dynamics that could allow for successful civilian rule [that does not enter into an animosity with the military] and not just the election of a civilian president," said Abdel-Gawwad.
"It is very difficult now to have a military regime; this is clear and if someone tried to [introduce or enforce] a military regime now they won't succeed, especially that the performance of SCAF during the past year was basically a failure," Abdel-Gawwad said. However, he hastened to add that the issue is not one of ending a military regime, but rather of making sure that civilian rule is solid enough and smart enough to ensure that the military, which will soon be "somewhat out of the political scene", will not return to rule in the near future. (full coverage pp. 2-8, 14, 16-17,19, 24-25)
| IN FRONT of the campus of the American University in Cairo in Tahrir Square, a garbage collector sweeps debris from five days of running battles downtown between police and protesters which left 10 dead. The violence erupted in the wake of last week's football tragedy in Port Said which killed 74 supporters. Calls have been made for the start of a nationwide civil disobedience campaign beginning Saturday, the first anniversary of the forced departure of Hosni Mubarak as president (photo: AP)
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2012/1084/fr1.htm
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