The preliminary results show that Ahmed Shafiq, a former Air Force general who served as prime minister under Mubarak, apparently claimed one of two top spots in the first round of voting. The other was won by Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohamed Morsi, who received the most votes in the 13-person field. Friday afternoon Morsi was in the lead with 26 percent, Shafiq with 23 percent and the leftist Sabbahi with 20 percent.
Sveriges radios reporter Cecilia Uddén kommenterar den politiska krisen i Egypten. I morgon, lördag har Mursi bjudit in representanter för oppositionen till dialog. "Dialogen i Citadellet" 1812. Folkomröstningen 15 december om Mursis nya maktlag.
The Muslim Brothers embrace the same neoliberal policies favored by the Mubarak regime and, if anything, envision an even more expansive program of privatization of public assets. The Brothers’ leadership also has a history of opposing militant labor action. Some Brothers who happen to work in industrial or clerical jobs have been more sympathetic to local workers’ issues. But they have not received support from the Guidance Bureau, which directs the organization and presumably has strong influence over the positions of the Mursi government. Since Mursi assumed office, physical and legal attacks on trade union activists have increased. Hundreds of workers have been fired for trade union activities and thugs have beaten many others. In September 2012 an Alexandria court sentenced five union leaders at the Alexandria Port Containers Company to three years in jail for leading a strike of 600 workers in October 2011. [2] This sentence is the harshest for a striker since the era of President Anwar al-Sadat. The case is under appeal.
by PHAM BINH on FEBRUARY 7, 2013. "Warning them of the strings imperialist powers will attach to arms shipments or funding is one thing; attaching strings to our support for their fight by means of a litmus test is another." interventioner
David D. Kirkpatrick, NYT Dec 25, 2012: "Hamdeen Sabahi was the most popular leader in the fight against Egypt’s new Islamist-backed constitution. Now he is preparing for his next battle: against Islamist leaders’ plans for Western-style free-market reforms"
Cam McGrath/IPS. CAIRO, Jan 9 2014 (IPS) - A draft constitution set to go before a public referendum next week gives the military more privileges, enshrining its place as Egypt’s most powerful institution and placing it above the state. The new text, set to replace the constitution drawn up in 2012 under Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, has stoked fears that Egypt’s military leadership is pushing to consolidate its power and protect its political and economic interests. “The powers conferred to the army (in the draft constitution) lay the foundation for a military dictatorship,” warns Tharwat Badawi, professor of constitutional law at Cairo University. “The powers conferred to the army lay the foundation for a military dictatorship." The new charter was drawn up by a 50-member committee appointed by the military-installed government that has ruled since the army ousted Morsi in July 2013.
In his first official visit to Russia after being inaugurated on June 8, President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi reached deals Tuesday with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to create a free trade zone with Eurasian countries and a Russian industrial zone in Egypt.
"Despite a glorification of the Egyptian revolution as a “non-violent” one, violence has been a part of the uprising since the first stone was thrown." by Philip Rizk on April 7, 2013
Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies massed outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in Cairo's Nasr district to demonstrate their backing for Morsi in his rejection of opposition calls to step down just a year into his term of office. They gathered under the slogan "legitimacy is a red line", in reference to Morsi's insistence that he won a free and fair election and has a popular mandate. Opponents of the Islamist president gathered outside Cairo's Al-Azhar -- Sunni Islam's highest seat of learning -- for a march to Tahrir Square, the iconic epicenter of the protest movement that ousted veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Hundreds of Morsi opponents have been holding a sit-in in Tahrir since Tuesday, June 25. Their protest was called by the Tamarod movement (Arabic for rebellion) which says it has collected more than 15 million signatures to a petition demanding Morsi's resignation and a snap election.
Jonathan Steele 3 July: "Rejecting the results of elections that were widely deemed to be free and fair and setting aside a country's basic law is a step that no army should ever take. The fact that the army's move has been welcomed by many of the revolutionaries who first had the courage to go into the streets against Mubarak in 2011 is a desperate commentary on their political naivety and shortsightedness."
The correct question is: “Now that a popular uprising has resulted in Morsi's downfall, will the Egyptian people, whether they are against or for the Muslim Brotherhood, manage to bring down the military regime?”