Egypt analysis: Mohammed Morsi may have won, but he is not in charge

June 24th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

It is not, of course. For one thing, nobody really knows now who is in power.
Mr Morsi, just about everyone agrees, is not. He is answerable to two men:
Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the chairman of the Supreme Council
of the Armed Forces and defence minister; and Mohammed Badie, the Murshid or
Guide of the Brotherhood, to whom he also owes obedience.

It is easy to see why the liberal activists who started last year’s revolution
against Hosni Mubarak feel betrayed. While the press in Egypt and abroad
have been talking of the battle between the Islamists and the army, the real
story has been the pair’s co-operation – sometimes angry, sometimes
enthusiastic, always competing for attention.

The first group the Brotherhood spokesman thanked after victory was declared
yesterday was the military. The first congratulations to Mr Morsi came from
Field Marshal Tantawi. Troops who might once have arrested him were placed
as an honour guard on his door – though of course, the guns could quickly
point in the other direction if Mr Morsi steps out of line.

The fight for Egypt’s future is still on.

But there were small victories too. The rise of the Islamists showed that
persecution can be overcome with persistence – particularly if you forswear
violence, as the group has done for many years now.

They have proved that the voice of the people cannot be entirely ignored. With
such a narrow margin of victory, everyone feared that the result would be
stolen, but it was not. The Brotherhood must now learn an important
corollary – that they too cannot afford to ignore the fears of the rural,
old regime, Christian and business classes who voted against them.

Optimists thought last year’s revolution would lead immediately to a
western-style democracy. Pessimists thought it would lead to Islamist
dictatorship. Both were wrong.

There was never any way that the army, while prepared to drop Mubarak, would
give up its powers and privileges lightly. The Brotherhood knew it had no
need to impose Islam by force and risk its popularity. Sixty years of
military dictatorship initiated by army officers who, as is often forgotten,
had Islamist sympathies themselves, has left an Egypt that is already
overwhelmingly Islamist in all but name.

What is left is a more complex arena for combat, in which everything remains
to be negotiated. With the gun, the Koran, the intellectuals and the
international community all wanting to have their say, it is going to be
noisy for some time yet.