You are the people, the legitimate source of legitimacy; and we are the army, the guardian of this legitimacy.
That was the message delivered by Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the Egyptian army chief, to the people of Egypt during the fateful week prior to the removal of former president Mohamed Morsi from office. Threatened by a growing protest against the president and his ruling party, and a planned nation-wide street revolt, the army chief warned of an impending national implosion.
Meanwhile, Sisi appealed to the president to reach an accommodation with the leaders of the protest, and to address the nation offering an expedited referendum date on his presidency, in order to defuse the explosive situation.
Failure to reach a compromise, the general insisted, would force the army to propose its own road map for the political future of the country. The president refused and the streets exploded with millions of protesters on June 30 against the president and the Muslim Brotherhood.
On July 3, the army acted, with the support of all factions except the Islamists. Power was handed over to a civilian interim administration headed by the president of the Supreme Court. A timetable was announced for the completion of a new inclusive, non-sectarian constitution, and new parliamentary and presidential elections. In the face of domestic and external criticism that the army has seized power illegally and unconstitutionally, the army chief asked the people for their verdict. Millions of Egyptians saturated the public space again on July 26 and voted with their feet in support of the army.
Technically, the army did indeed overthrow the president. But the definition of a military coup is that the army seizes power to rule, directly or on behalf of a narrow-based interest group. This is not the case in Egypt.
Although the role of the army in Egyptian politics has been paramount, this “coup” occurred at the behest of millions of Egyptians not willing to accept religious-based governance that would threaten all previous secular gains and the country’s unique heritage.
The gridlock, mayhem and the fraying of the body-politic at the seams under the Muslim Brotherhood government could not have continued without dire consequences for the survival of the Egyptian state. Only the Egyptian national army could have forced the needed change. The well-organized Muslim Brotherhood had promised that they would burn down the country and drown it in a blood-bath. The powerful army was deployed to avert a real catastrophe and a total breakdown in law and order.
Apparently, the Egyptian people were writing new rules for the interaction between the military and society when they demanded from their national army to stage a coup d’état. The danger is that the army chief is being hailed as a national hero, a saviour, and is urged to run for president.
More perilous still is the view that Egypt can only be ruled by the military. This goes against the hopes engendered in 2011 for civilian-based constitutional governance. Whether the road map will succeed or whether the army will assume formal control remains to be seen.
Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists have wide support in the country, and they represent a legitimate component of society. Their slogan, “Islam is the solution,” has become an attractive prescription for curing society’s ills. The abysmal failure in governance by the brotherhood, the resort to violence and the assault on fundamental civil liberties, nevertheless, have alienated many supporters and evaporated a great deal of perceived legitimacy.
Undoubtedly, the Muslim Brotherhood have squandered a historic opportunity, after decades in the political wilderness, to establish a bona fide presence in Egyptian politics by insisting on monopolizing power instead of sharing it, and refusing all appeals for a consensus-based social accommodation. With the decapitation of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt, the implications for other Islamist movements in the region have become very tenuous.
Hanny Hilmy is a research fellow at the Centre for Global Studies, University of Victoria.
