Michael Wahid Hanna writes: Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi turned Egyptian politics on its head on Thanksgiving eve with his now familiar style of governance: a unilateral, surprise decree, the fourth of its kind since Morsi assumed his position in June. Each of these decisions has proceeded with little to no consultation and, regardless of their intent, each proclamation was notable for carving out further and broader authorities for the executive. The common thread linking these decisions is the majoritarian lens though which the Muslim Brotherhood understands political life and democratic politics — one which bodes ill at this foundational moment when Egypt is attempting to refashion its social compact and establish a sustainable constitutional and political order.

Morsi’s majoritarian mindset is not anti-democratic per se, but depends upon a distinctive conception of winner-takes-all politics and the denigration of political opposition. Winning elections, by this perspective, entitles the victors to govern unchecked by the concerns of the losers. This chronic overreach has cemented the divide between Islamists and non-Islamists and heightened suspicions of the Brotherhood’s ultimate intentions.

The latest constitutional declaration included defensible measures such as victims’ compensation and the reopening of cases related to the violent repression of protesters. But they came with a poison pill, namely, the granting of unlimited and unreviewable presidential authority. In plain terms, Article VI of the declaration enshrined immunity for any and all presidential decisions and an ostensibly temporary form of unchecked one-man rule. Needless to say, for a deeply divided country that had risen up against the authoritarian rule of Hosni Mubarak not two years past, these steps were shocking and ominous for many outside the Islamist political fold (and perhaps even some within it). These measures set the stage for potential repressive actions by an unchecked executive in response to any form of opposition. [Continue reading…]

The Guardian reports: More than 100,000 people took to the streets of Cairo on Tuesday to protest against a decree by the Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, that grants him sweeping constitutional powers.

Columns of protesters from all over the Egyptian capital descended on Tahrir Square, the focus of the January 2011 revolution, in numbers that rivalled the rallies in the 18-day protest that toppled the authoritarian ruler Hosni Mubarak.

“Dictator” was the word being used to describe Morsi’s new status after last Thursday’s decree, which grants the immunity for the president from judicial review as well protecting a controversial constitutional assembly dominated by the group he is affiliated with, the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Today’s protests are to overthrow oppression and stand up to the new dictatorship of Morsi, his decree and a constitution far removed from the revolution,” said Haytham Mohamedeen of the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists movement. “He has to back down. The revolution and the streets will dictate what he will do. If he stands in the way of the revolution he will share the same fate as Mubarak.”

Other marchers – who took to the streets in numbers similar to those that toppled Mubarak – called for Morsi not merely to rescind his decree but to step down from the presidency. The chant of the 2011 revolution – “The people want to bring down the regime” – was echoed in other major Egyptian cities, including Alexandria and Suez. [Continue reading…]

Al Jazeera reports: As Egypt gears up for further protests, divisions over President Mohamad Morsi’s recent decrees to solidify his power have had a polarising effect on the judiciary, one of the country’s most sacred institutions.

Morsi’s declaration has led to a judicial boycott by some judges, while others say what the president is doing is justified, and those refusing to hear cases are playing politics.

The Judges Club – an unofficial organisation of judges within the judiciary, primarily made up of those opposing Morsi’s policy decisions – called for a boycott of the courts until Morsi rescinds his declaration.

The Judges of Egypt, another unofficial club of judges, held a press conference of its own, reassuring the public that despite the boycott they would ensure courts and legal proceedings would continue to operate normally.

Issandr El Amrani writes: There is a legend about how Alexander the Great solved an intractable problem he came across during his conquests. An ox cart in the ancient kingdom of Phrygia (in today’s Anatolia) had been attached by a knot to a post by Zeus. The man who could untie the knot, an oracle had prophesied, would have the approval of the gods to rule. When Alexander arrived in Phrygia, like previous would-be conquerors, he struggled to untie it. His solution, ultimately, was to draw his sword and cut the rope.

This parable is alternatively interpreted as being about ingenuity and thinking outside the box, or as an argument that might makes right. This is also the debate now raging in Egypt after President Mohammed Morsi, in an extraordinary executive decree, took the right to rule without constraints.

Mr Morsi and his supporters – mostly Islamists – argue that the step was a necessary solution given an intractable problem: Egypt’s transition has languished far too long, hostage to politicking and the whims of an unreformed judiciary hostile to the new president.

The courts’ power to cancel the results of elections, like June’s disbanding of the lower house of parliament, or possibly dissolve the assembly now drafting a new constitution, was too disruptive to restoring normality and order in a country that sorely needs to move forward.

The presidential decree announced on Thursday evening also offered some welcome moves. The deadline for the writing of the constitution has been extended by two months, offering an opportunity for the third of the constituent assembly’s members who walked out last week to return and negotiate. Mr Morsi has also appointed a new public prosecutor, replacing an unpopular official he had tried to sack last month, and ordered retrials in cases of police violence in the 2011 uprising, including the case of his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.

The decree was preceded by cryptic leaks to the press that Mr Morsi would be taking bold measures. The Muslim Brotherhood dispatched its cadres to hold a demonstration at the Cairo High Court – a stand-in for the judiciary – and rumours spiralled as to what Mr Morsi might do. In the local and international press, praise was lavished on him for his handling of the Gaza crisis and his reconciliation with a US president who only two months ago was unwilling to describe the new Egypt as an ally.

Mr Morsi’s administration may have been in trouble over its handling of various issues, from the constitutional debate to transport disasters, but personally Mr Morsi was on top of the world. This, it was expected, would have been his chance to pivot from a foreign-policy success and break the deadlock in Egypt’s domestic politics.

Or so he thought. [Continue reading…]

Reuters adds: Egyptian share prices plunged on Sunday, with the main market index falling by nearly 10 percent in the first trading session since President Mohamed Mursi ignited a political crisis by expanding his powers.

The price falls were the biggest since March 2011, when the market reopened after the popular uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak, with the EGX30 index down 9.45 percent by 0945 GMT.

“We’re not the same Egypt. Investors know that Mursi’s decisions will not be accepted and that there will be clashes on the street,” said Osama Mourad of Arab Financial Brokerage.

David Rohde writes: After helping end the fighting in Gaza, impressing President Barack Obama, and negotiating a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has fallen victim to what Bill Clinton calls “brass.”

Morsi’s hubristic post-Gaza power grab on Thursday was politically tone deaf, strategic folly and classic over-reach. It will deepen Egypt’s political polarization, scare off desperately needed foreign investment and squander Egypt’s rising credibility in the region and the world.

Television images of renewed clashes in Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, and Suez will play into stereotypes that the Middle East is not ready for democracy. They will bolster suspicions inside and outside Egypt that the Muslim Brotherhood cannot be trusted.

I disagree with the skeptics and believe democracy can still be established in Egypt. But Morsi’s moves won’t help Egypt make the difficult transition.

“There was a disease but this is not the remedy,” Hassan Nafaa, a liberal political science professor and activist at Cairo University, told Reuters Friday. “We are going towards more polarization between the Islamist front on one hand and all the others on the other. This is a dangerous situation.”

An alarming dynamic is taking hold in Egypt. Power-grabs, brinksmanship and walk-outs are becoming the norm, as a bitter struggle plays out among newly empowered Islamists, vestiges of the Mubarak regime and the country’s deeply divided liberals. Political paralysis is the result — with rule by presidential decree, overreach by the judiciary, and a deadlocked constitutional assembly. As polarization deepens, desperately needed economic, political, and judicial reforms stall.

Friday’s street protests were relatively small compared to the massive Arab spring demonstrations.. But the trend is in the wrong direction. [Continue reading…]

The Guardian adds: Egypt’s most senior judges have condemned President Mohamed Morsi for granting himself sweeping new powers which they say amount to an “unprecedented assault” on the independence of the judiciary.

The supreme judicial council said work would be suspended in all courts and prosecution offices until the decree passed by the president earlier this week was reversed.

The announcement by the top judges, most of whom were appointed by former President Hosni Mubarak, came after tens of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets on Friday to protest against Morsi’s decree.

Al Ahram reports: By Friday night, the number of the protesters, who began arriving in Tahrir Square for ‘Eyes of Freedom’ Friday throughout the morning, had reached tens of thousands after rallies from Talaat Harb Street, Shubra, Sayyida Zeinab, and Mustafa Mahmoud Square in Giza reached Tahrir.

While many protesters had started leaving the square, others were just arriving.

For one, Ultras football fans arrived in torrents at sundown, adding thousands to the square.

Protesters chanted “The people want to topple the regime,” “Do not be afraid, Morsi has to leave,” and “Down with the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide.”

Over 30 opposition political groups took part in the protest. Their demands include the dismissal of Morsi’s cabinet, prosecuting police officers responsible for killing and injuring protesters, and a purge and restructuring of the police.

However, a new Constitutional Declaration announced by president Mohamed Morsi on Thursday altered the focus of the expected rallies.

The declaration gained the ire of liberal and leftist forces across the country who charge that the president has awarded himself dictatorial powers since the new rules stipulate that no presidential decision taken since 30 June when he assumed office can be appealed.

The declaration also angered many Egyptians since it shields the Islamist-dominated Constituent Assembly and Shura Council (upper house of parliament) from possible dissolution by pending court orders.

A video appearing at the Telegraph shows demonstrators at the headquarters of the Brotherhood’s political front, the Freedom and Justice Party, in Alexandria:

Nathan Brown writes: In a series of moves, President Morsi has used the nearly absolute authority he assumed last August to try to put that absolute authority beyond reach, at least on a temporary basis.

He may very well succeed. The potential opponents to his move are legion but they are also divided and many are politically clueless. By careful timing and a series of carrots for various actors, Morsi may have outmaneuvered any opposition. Internationally, he has just won plaudits for his role in ending the fighting between Israel and Hamas; that likely offers him a bit of insulation from international criticism and some vague domestic capital for showing Egypt’s centrality. Offering cash to the revolution’s victims and retrials for their attackers seems designed to placate street activists. Non-Islamist forces in the Constituent Assembly are seeing one of their fundamental demands — an extension on the clock — met. And an obvious source of opposition — the judiciary, whose role is dramatically evicted from the transition process—may be a bit confused on how to respond. After all, it is leaders of the “judicial independence” movement from within their ranks that appears to be leading some of Morsi’s charge (Morsi’s vice president, the minister of justice, and the new prosecutor general are all members of that clique that stood so resolutely against the old regime’s judicial manipulations).

And the substance of the decisions is not all bad news for those who hope for a democratic transition. The prosecutor general who has been dismissed was an old-regime holdover trusted by few people. The Constituent Assembly, constantly threatened with dissolution by court order, was working in a manner that seemed to deepen divisions. Non-Islamists were having trouble breaking themselves of the habit of praying for foreign, military, or judicial intervention and Islamists had depleted the very limited supply of amity they had brought to the transition. Trials of old regime elements had clearly gone awry and victims of military and security force brutality been abandoned. Morsi’s moves work to address these issues.

But whatever the desirability of elements of these decisions, today’s overall message might be summed up: “I, Morsi, am all powerful. And in my first act as being all powerful, I declare myself more powerful still. But don’t worry — it’s just for a little while.” [Continue reading…]

Reuters reports: Egypt recalled its ambassador from Israel on Wednesday after Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed Hamas’s top military commander and at least six other Palestinians, presidential spokesman Yasser Ali said.

“President Mohamed Mursi has followed the Israeli brutal assault in which a number of martyrs and sons of the Palestinian people were killed,” Yasser Ali said in a statement aired on television.

“On this basis he has recalled the Egyptian ambassador from Israel; has ordered the Egyptian representative at the United Nations to call for an emergency meeting at the Security Council … and summoned the Israeli ambassador in Egypt in protest over the assault,” the statement added.

“On behalf of the Egyptian people the president gives his condolences to the Palestinian people over their martyrs,” Ali said.

Egypt has recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv on previous occasions, including August, 2011 when Israeli forces killed five Egyptian security personnel along the border while pursing gunmen.

Egypt also withdrew its envoy during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and heavy Israeli shelling of the Gaza Strip in 2000.

Nathan Brown writes: Those who follow the Egyptian constitutional process have every reason to be confused and concerned. Leaks, partial drafts, and conflicting accounts make the content of the document hard to follow. But the constitutional stakes in Egypt seem to be very high, and the debate has become emotional and charged. Rhetoric is highly polarized, with non-Islamists claiming that Islamists have hijacked the process. The Islamists retort that their contemplated changes are small. Their critics, the Islamists say, cannot accept election results that indicate strong support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi movements.

In a sense, both sides are right. Islamists are correct when they claim to be acting with restraint. The document they are producing will make only limited and subtle textual changes in religion-state relations compared to the 1971 constitution. On the issues on which there has been most controversy, such as explicit mentions of the Islamic sharia, changes will be particularly light. But their critics are also correct. Islamists are dominating the process and are likely to see a constitution that reflects their interests.

This is not so much because of the tools that they are crafting and more because of who will be using those tools if Egypt’s future elections look anything like its most recent ones. The 2012 constitution will be operating in a very different political context, so that even the step of adopting past language is likely to produce very different results. In this way, Egypt’s new constitution will not so much resolve all controversies as it will set up a period of prolonged trench warfare within, among, and over a series of institutions. And Islamist forces are likely to move forward gradually rather than by suddenly capturing the state. This struggle will likely take place over many years, and the outcome will determine what the vague language of the constitution actually means in the lives of ordinary Egyptians. [Continue reading…]

Issandr El Amrani writes: Last Friday, thousands of protesters affiliated with Egypt’s secularist parties took to the streets for what may have been the country’s first specifically anti-Muslim Brotherhood demonstration. Grievances concerned the performance of the current government, the “Brotherhoodization” of state institutions and a draft constitution produced by a Brotherhood-controlled constituent assembly that is peppered with Islamic references and conservative language on freedom of expression and women’s rights. Most of all, though, it was a protest against the way in which the previous Friday, Brotherhood activists had tried to foil a secularist demonstration against President Mohamed Morsi’s policies.

At the same time, by taking on the Brotherhood, this latest demonstration also officially consecrated the group as the new regime and the secularists as the new opposition.

The Brotherhood, which has just held internal elections for the Freedom and Justice party, its political arm, is still figuring out how to be in power. The F.J.P. is widely seen as remote-controlled by the Brotherhood’s Guidance Council, a politburo of about a dozen members, even though the party’s new leader is making noise about reinforcing the separation between the party and what is supposed to be a religious advocacy group. Elected officials, starting with Morsi, are scrambling to take control of the unwieldy helm of state and quickly realizing the difficulties ahead.

Even after more than eight decades in the opposition, the Brotherhood arguably still was not ready to govern. It just seemed more ready than anyone else.

The secularists — a broad term that includes socialists, liberals, conservatives and figures from the era of Hosni Mubarak — are united in only one thing: their hatred of the Brotherhood. Their ability to stage protests is, by the standards of post-Mubarak Egypt, limited. Only a few thousand people joined last Friday’s protests, when earlier demonstrations against Mubarak or the military council that ruled between Mubarak and Morsi typically attracted tens of thousands. And even when it comes out against the Islamists, the secular opposition bickers with itself. Radical secularists object to the presence of more conservative ones, for example: last week, a group of revolutionaries called April 6 jeered a delegation of supporters of Amr Moussa, a foreign minister under Mubarak. [Continue reading…]

Issandr El Amrani writes: On Saturday evening, as President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt addressed a crowd of tens of thousands in a Cairo stadium, I listened to his speech in a taxi, stuck in one of Cairo’s perennial traffic jams. Morsi, who has just passed the 100th day of his presidency, was speaking on the occasion of another anniversary, that of the 1973 war in which Egypt managed to break the Bar-Lev Line, the fortifications on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal that Israel built after occupying the Sinai Peninsula in 1967. Celebrated as the “October victory” by Egyptians — despite the fact that Egypt’s military advances were quickly reversed — the day is usually an occasion for martial pageantry and patriotic chest-thumping.

Not this time, at least not entirely. Yes, there was the honoring of the ingenious officers and brave soldiers who devised and fought in The Crossing, the operation to retake the eastern bank of the canal. More remarkable, however, a civilian president was leading the ceremonies for the first time, and most of his speech was devoted not to past military glories but present economic troubles.

In his two-hour address, Morsi defended his record, claiming to have made substantial progress on the priorities he had outlined for his first 100 days in office: security, bread and fuel shortages, public cleanliness and traffic. His detractors differ, of course: a Web site set up to monitor his achievements, MorsiMeter, suggests that he has made substantial progress on only a few issues.

From my vantage point, stuck on Cairo’s Nile Corniche as an ambulance tried to make its way through the gridlock while Morsi boasted of the record number of traffic tickets issued by his administration, it all sounded somewhat tragicomic.

The reality is that Morsi’s honeymoon with the public is nearing its end. He impressed by standing up to the generals and with his initial forays into foreign policy. But he promised too much too soon. Even after the generals got out of the way, he still faced a notoriously obstructive bureaucracy and an almost insurmountable range of problems. Raising expectations about his ability to solve them was not smart politics. [Continue reading…]

In a long feature article on the new Egypt, Stephanie Nolen reports: In a late-night conversation in his living room, filled with gold Louis XIV-inspired furniture, Mr. [Amr] Darrag, a congenial and clean-shaven engineer [who is a senior Muslim Brotherhood member who chairs the “foreign relations” committee of its Freedom and Justice Party], says his is the most reluctant of governments, and came about only because the Brotherhood was forced to abandon its pledge not to field a presidential candidate.

“We never intended to run for the presidency, we’d been saying that all the time. But at a certain moment we realized that, if we want to move forward, the only thing to do is to field a candidate for the presidency … because we were told that, ‘You have no hope’ – not we as Muslim Brothers: Egyptians. They will not have any say in the executive power of running the country.”

He says the military had made it clear it did not intend to cede power to a civilian ruler, and only a Brotherhood candidate could rally the Egyptian people sufficiently and thus display the authority needed to oppose the military successfully. The other candidates running against Ahmed Shafik, a former Mubarak-era cabinet minister who for many represented the return of the old regime, had only small parties and no such authority.

And indeed, Mr. Morsi challenged the military and pulled it off. Last month, in his one bold move to date, he shocked the nation (and international observers) by cutting a deal with some second-tier generals and putting them in charge of the armed forces, forcibly retiring Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the defence minister seen as the architect of the military’s bid for ever-greater political power.

He also cancelled a decree that gave the military the power to, essentially, supersede the constitution – and thus checkmated the strongest threat to his government. Egyptians of every political persuasion were thrilled to see Mr. Tantawi gone – and then began to speculate about what Mr. Morsi intended to do with his new clout.

Such suspicion frustrates Mr. Darrag. “People insist on getting their view of what we would do from what the Taliban does or what Iran does. We’ve been [in power] for months now, and look at TV, look at the streets – nothing changed and there is no inclination to change anything.”

In fact, he adds, “You cannot change these things by force. Look at some other countries like Saudi Arabia, for example, where by force, by law, women have to cover their bodies totally – if you travel to Saudi Arabia, and look at what happens on [departing] airplanes where women take off their [veils] and put on full makeup and then go out.

“We don’t want that; this is hypocrisy, in our opinion. We want people who really willingly follow the Islamic tradition, the Islamic rules. Not by force. Because, if you enforce that, they will just give them up the first moment they are allowed to. This is not what we’re after. We would like to have a person with a better relationship with God.”

Mr. Darrag’s breezy assurances are typical of the public face of his party. But for Egyptians concerned about the Brotherhood’s ability to govern, the embassy attack is emblematic of a key issue – it suggests the government’s hands are tied by its Islamist ideology and the flowering of conservative political groups in the wake of the revolution.

For example, Salafis criticized the Brotherhood for its willingness to participate in earthly politics under Mr. Mubarak – but then got into the game themselves in the first election, organizing an Islamist bloc led by al-Hizb an-Nour, the Party of the Light, that claimed 127 of 498 seats, second only to Freedom and Justice.

Now, some Salafis appear to sense an opportunity to push the envelope: The embassy attack is one of many examples, as is the recent arrest of blogger Alber Saber, accused of atheism. He was first detained by ordinary citizens; then the police he called for protection instead chose to jail him.

Tamer Mowafy, a veteran researcher with the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, says the Brotherhood, speaking a public language of freedom of belief and tolerance, wants no part of such actions, but cannot move swiftly against these actors because it has a pious public image to protect.

“The critics know the state is weak and the Muslim Brotherhood can’t punish them for certain things because they are supposed to be defenders of Islam, so we can expect attacks to come from everywhere,” he explains as activists hunch over laptops in every corner of his smoke-filled office.

“The bureaucracy is suspicious of [the Brotherhood] and they know it, the military doesn’t like them and they know it, and the Brotherhood is not willing to go against other forces, either – not against liberals or NGOs defending human rights.

“Right now, they don’t want to struggle with anyone, they want to take steps cautiously, and it’s making them look weak. They are not in full control.”

The Brotherhood knows it needs the co-operation of the military, and appears to have tacitly reassured the behemoth institution that it will not try to wrest back control of the estimated 15 per cent of the Egyptian economy that it controls as a private fiefdom. Even cronies of Mr. Mubarak are being welcomed into senior political positions and big business deals, as the Brotherhood tries to solidify its position. No one on either end of the political spectrum likes that.

But Mr. Mowafy says that, above all, the Brotherhood is characterized by its long-term view. “They take their time, and it may be a very long time, but they get to what they want.

“You have to understand that the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t want, as an organization, to take control of the state – they want the state to become the organization. Every Egyptian should be a Brother. Not today or tomorrow – they want to plant their seeds and watch them grow.”

A critical indicator of what seeds are being sown – what plans the government has for the future face of Egypt – is the new constitution, which is months past its deadline. Until it is accepted in a national referendum, now tentatively slated for November, no new parliament can be elected and all else – bailouts from international financial institutions, reform of the vast public service, changes to a deeply skewed subsidy system that does little to help the poor – remains on hold. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: On the eve of his first trip to the United States as Egypt’s new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi said the United States needed to fundamentally change its approach to the Arab world, showing greater respect for its values and helping build a Palestinian state, if it hoped to overcome decades of pent-up anger.

A former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mr. Morsi sought in a 90-minute interview with The New York Times to introduce himself to the American public and to revise the terms of relations between his country and the United States after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, an autocratic but reliable ally.

He said it was up to Washington to repair relations with the Arab world and to revitalize the alliance with Egypt, long a cornerstone of regional stability.

If Washington is asking Egypt to honor its treaty with Israel, he said, Washington should also live up to its own Camp David commitment to Palestinian self-rule. He said the United States must respect the Arab world’s history and culture, even when that conflicts with Western values.

And he dismissed criticism from the White House that he did not move fast enough to condemn protesters who recently climbed over the United States Embassy wall and burned the American flag in anger over a video that mocked the Prophet Muhammad.

“We took our time” in responding to avoid an explosive backlash, he said, but then dealt “decisively” with the small, violent element among the demonstrators.

“We can never condone this kind of violence, but we need to deal with the situation wisely,” he said, noting that the embassy employees were never in danger. [Continue reading…]

Baher Ibrahim writes: Sexual harassment of women is not new to Egypt. Almost every woman in the country has experienced some form of harassment, whether verbal or physical.

What is new, though, is a slow but steady change in the tide of public opinion. It began with Eid in 2006, where a crowd of women fell prey to sexual predators, some having their clothes ripped off.

Until recently, the Arabic word for harassment (tahharush) was not used in this context. It was previously known as muakssa – implying playful behaviour by young men having a good time. It was simply accepted as part of a “boys will be boys” attitude, with women and girls having to embrace it because that’s just how boys are.

Finally, this social cancer has come to be referred to as “harassment” and the media have begun to pay attention rather than turn a blind eye. [Continue reading…]

The Guardian reports: Britain has allowed key members of Egypt’s toppled dictatorship to retain millions of pounds of suspected property and business assets in the UK, potentially violating a globally-agreed set of sanctions.

The situation has led to accusations that ministers are more interested in preserving the City of London’s cosy relationship with the Arab financial sector than in securing justice.

Hosni Mubarak, the ousted former president, was sentenced to life in jail in June. A six-month investigation, conducted by BBC Arabic and released in conjunction with the Guardian and al-Hayat, a pan-Arab newspaper, has identified many valuable assets linked to his family and their associates that have not been frozen.

These include luxury houses in Chelsea and Knightsbridge and companies registered in central London. One member of Mubarak’s inner circle has even been permitted to set up a UK-based business in recent months, despite being named on a British Treasury sanctions list (pdf) of Egyptians who are linked to misappropriated assets and subject to an asset-freeze.

In response to the investigation, the Foreign Office said it was working closely with its Egyptian counterparts to hunt down Mubarak regime assets. The Treasury, which has a dedicated unit tasked with implementing financial sanctions, said it was confident it had acted properly. Both departments said they could not comment on individual cases.

The revelations will embarrass British ministers, who have previously expressed support for the Arab uprisings and vowed to take “decisive action” to track down and return illicit funds taken out of Egypt.

Yet 18 months on from the downfall of Mubarak, publicly-accessible records from Companies House and Land Registry indicate that the fortunes of regime figures convicted of embezzling money from Egypt remain at least partially on UK soil and untouched by British authorities. [Continue reading…]

Shadi Hamid writes: It was looking bleak for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. The region’s oldest and most influential Islamist movement had underperformed and overreached in parliament, alienating leftists and liberals in the process. When, in April, the Muslim Brotherhood announced that Mohammed Morsi would be its presidential candidate, after its first choice had been disqualified, the sense of policy drift was unmistakable. The Brotherhood was losing ground. Predictions of its demise, however, were premature. Despite numerous missteps, the movement has proved its resilience. It has not, to be sure, become what many Egyptians hoped it might be — the leader of a unified, national movement that would push Egypt, however haltingly, toward democracy. But by its own particular standards, the Brotherhood has succeeded.

The organization (including its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party) does not operate as a traditional party might be expected to. It cares, of course, about winning elections. But it cares even more about the unity and integrity of the organization, in Arabic, tanzim. In the early days of Egypt’s transition, the Brotherhood showed its more ruthless side—not necessarily out of discomfort with internal democracy but out of its longstanding concern, some would say obsession, with self-preservation. To the extent that dissent within the Brotherhood undermined the tanzim, it had to be quashed.

First, the Brotherhood leadership forbade its members from joining any other party but its own. Those who joined other parties, or started their own, were expelled. One of the group’s most prominent figures, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, was forced out after he insisted on running for president against the Brotherhood’s wishes. Thousands of young activists who joined his insurgent campaign had their memberships frozen.

Indeed, Egypt’s revolution was a threat as much as it was an opportunity for a group that had grown accustomed to the unifying power of repression. Without a clear enemy — the Mubarak regime — maintaining organizational cohesion was becoming difficult. So it had to be enforced. Brotherhood officials did not apologize for their increasingly aggressive tactics. For them, it was a simple matter of respecting the institution of which they were a part and to which they had pledged their lives. It was, after all, the group’s policymaking body, the shura council that voted to ban members from joining other parties. “All decisions are taken as an organization, with shura (consultation), with democracy,” Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) deputy leader Essam El-Erian told me at the time. “[The youth] are appreciated but they are appreciated in the context of the organization and not outside of it.” Dissent was permitted before a final decision was made, but not after. [Continue reading…]

Hind M Ahmed Zaki writes: Most Egyptians will come to remember 13 August 2012 as more than just another long hot day of the holy month of Ramadan. Just a few hours before sunset when millions waited eagerly to break their fast, news broke out of a major development in the ongoing power struggle between two main power houses: the generals representing the country’s military past, and the political faction seeking to control its future. President Mohamed Morsy tipped the balance in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood in mid-June, when he announced the revocation of the supplement to the Constitutional Declaration issued by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Moreover, a presidential decree announced a major reshuffle within the ranks of the military establishment, including, most noticeably, the forced retirement of Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and de-facto military ruler since 11 February 2011, as well as the military chief of staff, Lieutenant General Sami Anan.

The president’s decree could be interpreted in two different ways, each suggesting a different scenario for Egypt’s future. On the one hand, it could signal the start of a new Islamist-military pact, one that confirms the speculations of those who believe that a power-sharing scheme between the two has been in place for a while now. In the eyes of many, the presidential decree is simply a reshuffle of the power structure within the military establishment, one that would rid it of those that stand against the Islamic penetration of the state’s institutions. The appointment of military intelligence chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who was promoted two ranks from major general to general and now heads the ministry and the armed forces, and who also happens to be the same general who first admitted (and later defended) that military personnel performed virginity tests on a number of female demonstrators in April 2011, is seen as further evidence that little will change in current ‘dual’ ruling structure. According to this view, the Islamists and the generals will continue to form an anti-revolutionary pact that serves to suppress the democratic forces of the revolution, that are yet too weak to have any meaningful say on the shape of things to come. To those that adhere to this view, the future of Egypt resembles that of Pakistan, since both countries share three main ingredients: an Islamic-military ruling pact, a more fundamentalist Islamic grassroot movement and a soaring poverty rate.

On the other hand, there are others who see Morsy’s decision in a different light, interpreting it as the end of the tenuous pact that existed for the past 18 months between the two forces, rather than its beginning. According to this opinion, the historical struggle for power between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military state has culminated in a clear victory for the former. The weakness of the nation’s non-Islamic democratic forces, coupled with the sidelining of the military, paves the way for the Muslim Brotherhood to control the political sphere uncontested, and for a long time to come.

But the reality is not as straightforward as either scenario claims it to be. Out of the dramatic events of the past week, one fact emerges slowly but surely: it is officially and unceremoniously the end of an era. The military state that has dominated the political scene since the 1952 coup d’état is definitively withering away, and with a speedier rate than most expected. The transitional period, an expression Egyptians heard extensively about but saw little of until now, is finally about to begin. A second republic is coming into being, but it might turn out differently than either of the above scenarios predict. [Continue reading…]