ECHO OF ARAB SPRING

The people in many parts of the world were still celebrating the New Year holidays in January 2011 when the second wave of the infamous Arab Spring hit Egypt...

Beginning of the End

It all started on January 25, when a huge group of protesters outraged by the thirty-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak gathered in the Tahrir Square in Cairo. Police intervention was unsuccessful as it failed against the mass protest movement. In the following days, a group of Bedouins close to President Mubarak opposed the protesters but was forced to retreat under the pressure of the crowd.

Remarkably, the Egyptian army did not use force at all. Instead, it was interested in protecting government facilities and observing the situation from the outside.

On February 10, Supreme Military Council held an extraordinary meeting with the participation of the Egyptian army commanders. On February 11, Omar Suleiman, head of the General Intelligence Directorate and one of Hosni Mubarak's closest associates, announced the resignation of the president. Thus ended the 30-year-old authoritarian rule of Hosni Mubarak, which began in 1981. The president transferred his powers to the Supreme Military Council.

The Mubarak government could resist for only three weeks. But it was not only the mass protests that caused the president's resignation. In Egypt, as in Tunisia, the army did not intervene until the last, and passively observed the overthrow of the government. Police and outlawed pro-government forces were unable to withstand multimillion protests. It will take only two years until the Egyptian army starts suppress the protests brutally, shooting hundreds of protesters in Cairo. But we will come to that point later…

On military and the second stage of the revolution

Probably, the true reason for the Egyptian army's refusal to defend Hosni Mubarak and his government in January-February 2011 lies in the recent past of Egypt. In fact, it was the military that has been controlling the power in the country for decades. Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and Hosni Mubarak were former officers of the Egyptian army. But Mubarak tried to break up this long-standing 'tradition' by promoting his son Gamal Mubarak as his successor. However, the military leadership of the country did not welcome the desire of the supreme commander to see his son as 'heir to the throne'. That is why at the beginning of 2011 the army did not intervene and preferred to monitor the situation from the tanks.

The process speeded up after the victory of protesters on February 11. During the referendum held on March 19, 2011 to introduce constitutional amendments, 77% of the voters supported the initiative. On April 30, the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement which gained popularity after the coup, announced the creation of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), as well as its intention to run for the upcoming parliamentary elections. Thus, in the first democratic elections held on November 28, 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood won 45.5% of the seats in the Egyptian parliament with 37.5% of votes. The runner up was the Salafi party Nur, which received 25.5% of the seats with 27.7% of votes.

Six months later (May 23-24, 2012), the presidential election was held with 13 candidates, which was an unprecedented event for Egypt. FJP candidate, Mohammed Mursi, and former prime minister (2011) and the commander of Egyptian Air Force, Ahmed Shafig, had to continue competition in the second round of elections, which Mursi won, becoming the first democratically elected president of the country with 51.7% of the votes.

However, before and after this period, the Supreme Military Council continued to influence the state apparatus and especially the courts. Army generals cancelled the dissolution of parliament and some resolutions adopted by Mursi as the new president. Despite this, according to the results of the referendum of December 15-22, 2012, the country adopted the first civil constitution after the reign of Mubarak.

On June 30, 2013, youth movements, as well as other secular and liberal democratic political groups and the supporters of the Nur party formed a few months earlier, began protests against the Mursi government on behalf of the National Salvation Front. The movement was called Al-Tamarrud (rebellion). Everything happened as quick as planned. Protesters demanded the resignation of the Mursi government. The chief of the General Staff of the Egyptian army Abdel Fattah al-Sisi gave the parties 48 hours to think. When time was up, on July 3, the army advanced and overthrew the government, arresting a large group of government officials, including President Mohammed Mursi. This ended the second stage of the Egyptian revolution.

Fundamental measures and repressions

The new government suppressed any resistance of the protesters against the military coup extremely severely, including the use of weapons. After the July 3 events, 2,000 people were killed with more than 5,000 injured and 2,000 arrested, including the children of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. Eventually, massacres provoked political unrest, which ended with the resignation of the interim vice president Mohammed al-Baradei.

The most powerful clashes between the protesters and government forces took place in the Rabia al-Adawiya Square in Cairo. The protests, which according to official data claimed the lives of 632 people and left hundreds of people injured, lasted almost forty days - until August 14, when they were finally dispersed by the police.

After the coup, Adli Mansour, one of the judges of Constitutional Court, became the head of the interim government. On September 23, 2013, Egyptian court declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation. A huge number of imams of mosques (55,000), who supported the movement or were the members of it, were fired with their diplomas made void. At the same time, Salafi groups and the leadership of Al-Azhar University supported the coup. After that, brutal repressions began.

In total, about ten thousand members of the Muslim Brotherhood have been arrested in Egypt in recent years. Immediately after the coup, 22 hospitals and 7 private medical centres of the Islamic Medical Association run by the Muslim Brotherhood movement have been confiscated.

By the way, in December 2018, Egyptian courts indicted 614 people suspected of membership or complicity in the movement. It confiscated their property, including 268 companies, 30 hospitals and pharmacies. A few months earlier, 1,589 people were arrested, including the ousted President Mohammed Mursi, and the confiscated property of 1,133 organisations, 118 companies, hospitals, and several news agencies that belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The court sentenced 683 members and supporters of the movement, including three women. The latest court ruling on the members of the movement was implemented in February 2020, when 19 of them were executed by hanging. In total, 172 members of the movement were executed in 2016-2017. According to Egyptian law, court sentences are subject for approval of chief mufti, who is the last instance to approve or reject capital punishment (execution).

New stage and economic problems

After the 2013coup, the power was taken by military again. In the May 26-27, 2014 presidential elections, the Minister of Defense and Chairman of the Supreme Military Council in 2012-2014 Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi became the new president of Egypt and was re-elected in the next elections on March 26-28, 2018.

On February 14, 2019, 485 of the 596 deputies of the Egyptian parliament supported the constitutional changes that would allow the president to extend his tenure in office to six years. This means that Al-Sisi will be able to remain in power for two more terms after 2022, i.e. up to 2034.

But Egypt is experiencing serious economic problems. The 2015 ISIS attack on a passenger aircraft bound to St. Petersburg from Sharm el-Sheikh and with Russian tourists on board was a serious blow to the tourism sector, which is one of the country's main sources of income. There was a period when the number of tourists decreased even by 70%. Despite the efforts of the Egyptian government, desire to achieve former success in the tourism sector is still a dream.

Egypt's another important source of income is the Suez Canal, which provides 20% of national income and is the largest man-made channel putting through 14% of world maritime trade. Experts predict that repairing the canal and increasing job opportunities will help create one million new jobs. But Egypt and the Al-Sisi government are still dependent on financial assistance from the Gulf countries (UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia). In return, Egypt agreed to enter into a coalition with Saudi Arabia.

Situation in Egypt has not improved in recent years and remains quite tense. Since 2014, the local wing of ISIS, Beit al-Makdis, has been operating on the Sinai Peninsula constantly attacking the Egyptian army and law enforcement agencies of the country. The army is still conducting operations to clear the Sinai Peninsula from the terrorists.

According to forecasts of authoritative economic centres, Egypt is anticipating accelerated development in the next ten years, provided that the current state of the economy changes. Overpopulation in a predominantly agricultural country like Egypt creates serious problems. Being mainly an agricultural country, Egypt's cultivated land plots are mainly concentrated along the Nile River from south to north. The rest of the country is covered by desert. That is why the 90-millionth and fastest growing population of Egypt currently supports itself through outsourcing. Before the Arab Spring, part of Egyptian population had worked in neighbouring countries, mainly in Saudi Arabia and Libya. But war and terrorism limited these opportunities, and the majority of the two million Egyptians were forced to leave Libya.