RSS Feed
June 22nd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Earlier, the Muslim Brotherhood had declared Morsi’s victory over Ahmad Shafiq in the voting. Officials from the group had said that Morsi has won 52.5 percent of the counted vote.
However, Shafiq’s campaign says the claim is false, and that more than half of voters have chosen the right-hand man of ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak as next president.
This is while the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) which has been maintaining a tight grip on power since Mubarak’s ouster, has dissolved the parliament and claimed all legislative powers.
Under an interim constitutional declaration released Monday, the generals also took control of the state budget and gave the army veto power on a new constitution, making the president almost powerless.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Khaled Shami, political editor of the al-Quds al-Arabi, to hear his opinion on this issue. The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Do you think that this issue between the two sides, I mean we have already heard claims of fraud by Mr. Shafiq, do you think the fact that this will happen will have a lot of trouble in this regard in order to really know who will be the next president and who has secured the most number of votes?
Shami: Well the only fact we know for now is that both sides are claiming victory. The only fact is it is a close race. These results have shown that Egypt is divided right in the middle. We are talking about 51 percent according to both sides. This is very thin majority.
It also shows that Egypt can only be governed from the middle. Egyptian people are divided not only politically but ideologically, socially and even from the geographic point of view.
You have the Upper Egypt except Luxor has voted for Dr. Mohammed Morsi while the Delta, almost all of the Delta has voted for Shafiq. The SCAF is maintaining most of the power. The SCAF is going to be real supreme commander of Egypt no matter who is the winner and it seems to me that this can create more troubles.
Press TV: Do you think Mr. Shami that since the decision that was taken by the Supreme Military Council, the SCAF seems to have superior power in the country, was the fact that the military was afraid that if the Muslim Brotherhood come to power this would be a problem for them that they really wanted Shafiq to come to power?
Shami: Yes on the way of course Shafiq will be easier to do business with but I believe that from the SCAF point of view the thing that the country is too divided to leave it to any winner even to Shafiq because the additional constitutional declaration is going to be implemented no matter who is the winner.
So they wanted to maintain most of the power to make sure that stability is secured. But as far as the [Muslim] Brotherhood is concerned I think this is where the real conflict now between the SCAF and the [Muslim] Brotherhood and the deal is this, the SCAF is telling the Brotherhood you either be content with the share of power that we decide or you lose everything.
Press TV: Mr. Shami I want to get your take on this issue what you think about the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy in this regard and do you think that the revolutionary parties also have a role to play in this regard also?
Shami: Yes, I think careful reading of the results will show that Muslim Brotherhood have lost lots of popularity since the general elections end of last year. I mean by that time they had about eleven and a half million votes. They only got half of this in the first round of the presidential elections and now they have been struggling to get this percent which is almost half of the votes in the second round thanks to the revolutionary parties and those people who definitely do not want to see the remnants of the previous regime back in power.
So I think there are lessons to be learned from these results, Muslim Brotherhood were talking about sweeping victory from the first round before the election, now we see where they are.
I think the mistakes basically are the greediness for power and that is why the parliament is found to be unconstitutional. They wanted to control the whole parliament which is unconstitutional and also the arrogance of power that they were infected with so quickly before they even get any executive powers in their hands.
Once they are in the parliament with the majority they have been excluding their partners in the revolution and created enemies more than friends.
Press TV: So Mr. Shami do you think that we will be back to square one or will we see the streets moving again? We see a new revolution that is going down to the streets and trying to, perhaps going against both, the Muslim Brotherhood and especially the military council what seems to be a new regime coming up in the country?
Shami: I think we are already in square one unfortunately. The democratic experiment of Egypt has gone backwards simply because the SCAF never intended to hand over power fully as promised and this partially also due to the failure of the whole political elite that I blame not only the [Muslim] Brotherhood, the whole political elite were too busy fighting each other for power, popularity, narrow interest leaving the street that you mentioned, suffering even more than they used to suffer before the revolution.
So now the political elite particularly the [Muslim] Brotherhood may be able to fill Tahrir [Liberation] square with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators but moving the streets in the way that we witnessed during the revolution last year is pretty unlikely.
The people of Egypt are tired, the economy is deteriorating, security is not there, people almost will be, I will never say happy with the results of the elections but they will swallow these results hoping that the stability and the economy will come back so they can carry on their basic life.
Press TV: Do you think that would the military council still holding grip on some 30 percent of the country’s economy that does give it more power and ability I mean to stay in power?
Shami: Yes of course. They do have the power and as I said they have no intention of handing over most of these powers as it is very clear in this constitutional declaration. They are maintaining control over their own matters, the finance not only of the army but actually the whole country. The whole budget of Egypt is under the hands of the SCAF.
Finally, I won’t say what we are witnessing now in Egypt is birth of democracy. It has never been easy and in other countries it took years like five years in Tunisia for example to really have a political or proper democratization process but I think it will affect other countries, it will take the steam out of the Arab Spring and it would may bear troubles for other Islamists in the region who wished to take part in power in their countries.
AHK/SS
Related posts:
Views: 0
Posted in 
Tags: 
