Recent political developments in Egypt

The recent political developments in Egypt have been stressful and troublesome. Earlier today, I received a request from a dear friend in Australia to sum up what has happened in Egypt since the fall of Hosny Mubarak (on 11th February, 2011). My brief overview was as such : 


(1) Mubarak's fall was unavoidable, mainly because of Gamal Mubarak's political succession plan.

(2) Since the fall of Mubarak, SCAF made a number of fatal mistakes that strengthened the Ikhwan and weakened the Liberals. The first grave mistake was to delegate an Islamist (Tarek al Bishry) to draft the constitutional amendments that were endorsed by a popular referendum on 19th March, 2011.

(3) The victory of the Islamic groups in the November, 2011 parliamentary elections was a natural result of the following factors : 
     (a) the 19th March, 2011 constitutional amendments 
     (b) the reliance on a number of Islamist advisers, including Essam Sharaf, who was Prime Minister for a number of months, and     
     (c) the unjustified rushing that was driven by the Islamist advisers. 


(4) Since the Islamists' triumph in November, 2011 the battle has been mainly between the Ikhwan, who became excessively confident that Egypt will ultimately fall into their hands, and SCAF that has been mainly keen to protect the various assets, benefits, merits and immunity of the military institutions. 


(5) The Ikhwan benefited a great deal when SCAF pushed Ahmed Shafeeq to run for Presidency. It was not that difficult for the Ikhwan to (relatively) assassinate the character of Shafeeq. 


(6) The Obama's administration support of the Ikhwan was of a great value to the candidate put forth by the Ikhwan. In parallel to the Obama's administration strong support, the huge Qatari funds have been most instrumental. 


(7) There are rumors that Ahmed Shafeeq won more votes. Yet, SCAF opted to announce Morsy's victory, to avoid consequences similar to what happened in Algeria slightly more than 20 years ago. It is rumored that in case Ahmed Shafeeq was announced to be victorious, a wide range of violence would have exploded all over Egypt. 


Finally, you might like to read a short letter that I sent last week to Secretary Hillary Clinton about the Obama's administration support of the Ikhwan; a support that emanates from an extremely wrong understanding to the project of the Ikhwan.


 http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3128/egypt-muslim-brotherhood-hillary-clinton

The complete version of this article may be found here.