Egypt is facing its severest crisis since the January-February 2011 revolution against dictator Hosni Mubarak as the country moves toward nation-wide protests on June 30.
The elected president, Muhammad Morsi, has been extremely destabilizing for Egypt. His high-handed and erratic policies have polarized the country. Even many supporters of political Islam have been put off by him. He faces a youth opposition of leftists, liberals and centrists, who have been demonstrating in fairly large numbers. Morsi staged a counter-demonstration by Brotherhood supporters on Saturday.
The prospect of dueling demos that could spiral into violence alarmed the Egyptian military. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Minister of Defense, intervened Sunday by saying that the army would not stand idly by if there were significant social violence. He appeared to be threatening another military coup if the youth revolutionaries and the Brotherhood cannot find a way to live with one another.
Here is a video by and about the Rebellion Movement (al-Tamarrud):
The Syrian civil war spilled over onto Egypt!! and like in Lebanon. Impudent political leaders wipe up
Extremism, then condemn and denounce others and absolve themselves.
It’s interesting to see the hypocrisy of the White House on this matter. This time around they are supporting the government that is not supporting the people. The very thing they claimed to oppose.
This time around the government is democratically elected.
It’s hypocrisy to treat democracies differently from military dictatorships?
All of this, and the US is once again poised to leverage Salafism towards foreign policy aims. Those chickens will come home to roost, as they did on 9-11, and Americans will have by then forgotten what was done in their name that brought the calamity on them.
You think Sisi’s statement looks like the military leadership warning both sides? It looks more like a threat directed at the protesters, in defense of the government.
the Brotherhood took it as a threat aimed at them
It appears that the Tamarod campaigners plan is to eventually have the petition presented to the SCC. The judiciary seems inclined to support such a step but may be hestitant to delve into something it considers likely to produce too drastic of consequences.
Added to the mix, the Tagarrod campaign also claims to have collected more than 10 million signatures.
Regardless of whether or not there are early presidential elections, having credible parliamentary elections would help this situation. Starting to seem more and more likely that any election, be it presidential or parliamentary, will not see overwhelming dominance by either the FJP or the NSF but instead for centrists and revolutionaries indpendent of either side (somewhat more ideologically like the NSF, but with a different tactical approach).
Well the National Salvation Front parties would have to decide to run in parliamentary elections and would have to get up to speed about campaigning.
Otherwise those disillusioned with the Muslim Brotherhood might turn to the Salafi Nur party.