There was more on the minds protesters in Tahrir last night than the verdict of Mubark’s trial. They have been reexamining what has happened since Feb 11, 2011 when Murbark formally stepped down and SCAF took over. The mood of many who took part in the early days of revolution has been terribly somber since the outcome of the first round on presidential elections came out. Due to a divided revolutionary vote, the two remaining candidates in the presidential race were the least favored the majority. The democratic process had failed them. Many felt their revolutionary dreams are slipping away and they are being robbed of hope.
The leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) saw in the popular expression of discontent an excellent opportunity to rejoin the revolutionary fold and secure support for their presidential candidate. The MB’s Morsi, declared that under his presidency a retrial will be carried out and new damning evidence will be presented. However, many of the revolutionaries still see the MB along with SCAF have been accomplices in setting Egypt on an incredibly tortuous path of democratic transition possible. Here are but a few examples:
- The MB threw their weight entirely behind seriously flawed constitutional amendments in March 2011.
- The MB sat on their hands as
- thousands were being subject to military trial,
- women protester were subject to forced virginity tests
- killing and eye gouging were going on in and around Tahrir last November and December
- The MB parliamentarians have
- been pushing for laws that would ban protests
- done little to pass laws that would alleviate widely felt economic pains
- tried to minimize the influence of non-Islamist in the constitutional assembly
The so called “liberal” and “leftist” parties have also done little in terms of pushing for laws that would satisfy the stated demands of the revolution. However, their poor performance has drawn less popular ire than the Islamists since they are quite defuse and have little claim on real power. The revolution’s demands have yet to be convincingly adopted by any of the dominant political parties.
During the first round of the presidential elections, there where three candidates who managed to attract the support of the revolutionary voters. The liberal-Islamist Abou El-Fetouh, the Nasserist Hamdeen Sabahi, and the leftist Khalid Ali collectively received more votes than any of the two finalists. Hence, many now feel cheated by the voting process and disappointed that those three did not combine forces.
The discontent is real and growing, as I write these lines throngs in Tahrir are calling for a five person presidential council that would include Morsi, Sabahi, Abou El-Fetouh, Khalid Ali, and El-Baradei. The governing laws of this council remain unclear, and it is really doubtful if Morsi will concede to those demands. We are at an impasse were no politician is willing to step-up propose a workable way out and lead.
As much as I respect those in Tahrir who have serious and genuine love for the betterment of Egypt, I’m mystified by the Ikhwan’s attitude. It is clearly a ploy to get rid of Shafik and I’m afraid they are succeeding.
Watching the verdict on Dream, the right hand side of the screen showed the people outside the courtroom, and once the verdict was announced, they were jumping up and down ecstatic that Mubarak got life sentence.
It didn’t take long to have the Ikhwan monopolize the situation and urge people to show discontent.
I wasn’t going to vote for Mursi, but now it would be over my dead body to vote for him.
The Ikhwan have shown themselves to be very short term opportunists. It has already started to backfire and it is likely to be their undoing on the longer term.
But to be clear, it was not the Ikhwan who fomented the discontent. They merely tried to exploit it.
We were supposed to learn something from this trial about the machinery of oppression and how it can be stopped. We have been cheated. We now know little about it, and for all practical purposes it is has been revamped and upgraded. The grandmasters of this terrible machine were allowed to walk away. That was the true cause for popular anger, not Ikhwan instigation.