SALON

Monday, Sep 26, 2011 5:20 PM UTC

Has the military coopted Egypt's revolution?

The nation's army-led caretaker government appears to be setting an autocratic political course

By

Topics: GlobalPost, Arab Spring, Egyptian Protests, Middle East,

Has the military coopted Egypt's revolution?Egyptian soldiers stand on a tank in Cairo (Credit: Dylan Martinez / Reuters)

CAIRO, Egypt — Just days after the departure of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11, the nation’s new, self-appointed military leaders pledged, within six months, a swift transition to civilian rule.

Crowds of the same protesters that demanded Mubarak’s ouster cheered as their army said it would steer the nation toward a “free, democratic system.” Seven months later, however, many Egyptians are finding that little has changed.

As the so-called Supreme Council of the Armed Forces increasingly cements, and in some cases flaunts, its firm grip on power, the revolution that inspired a region is beginning to look more like an old-fashioned military coup.

Military trials of Egyptian civilians persist and the military leadership has expanded and extended the 30-year-old, widely criticized Emergency Law once used by Mubarak to justify his authoritarian tactics.

Egypt’s police chief even announced this month that security would use live ammunition on protesters thought to be illegally entering certain government buildings.

Although the military leadership finally announced a date for the delayed parliamentary elections — Nov. 21 — few are optimistic that the vote will be either fair or help bring stability and security.

“It does not look like the army wants to transfer their power to a civilian government,” said Joshua Stacher, an Egypt expert and professor at Kent State University. “Just like any incumbent, they want to stay in office to preserve their interests.”

Those interests include a sprawling business empire cultivated over the decades by the coutry’s leaders, all of whom have been drawn from the Army’s top brass. As the former commander of Egypt’s air force, Mubarak oversaw the sprawling military complex that owned — and still owns — countless private businesses.

The military runs “an economic empire within Egypt’s economy,” said Samir Soliman, a professor of political science at the American University in Cairo. For decades, Egypt’s army has profited from money invested in everything from bottled water factories to hospitals, to seaside resort hotels and clubs.

No one knows exactly how much of Egypt’s economy is controlled by the army, but most estimates place it in the “billions” of dollars range. The problem, said some analysts, is that the military likely wants to prevent the complete transition to civilian leadership to ensure its hold on these assets.

“The military will never allow a civilian president to have oversight of their budget,” Stacher said. “And the Mubarak-style tactics to control dissent on the streets is one way for the military to consolidate its rule.”

Egypt’s military-led caretaker government announced this week that the Emergency Law, which allows police the right to arrest without cause or warrant, will not be repealed until 2012.

The military said the sweeping powers granted in the law were necessary to prevent the type of chaos that erupted on Sept. 9, when a mob of hundreds of Egyptians stormed the Israeli embassy in Cairo.

Activists and opposition politicians responded by criticizing the military’s use of “scare tactics.” They argue that the state of emergency also gives security forces unfettered authority to intimidate workers on strike and forcibly quell peaceful protests.

Wael Ghonim, a former Google executive who became a visible youth activist during the uprising against Mubarak, recently pleaded with the military to quickly transfer power to an elected civilian authority.

“After weeks and months, the mode of governance in our nation has not fundamentally changed and the excuse has been ‘stability,’ and it did not matter if the result was stability at the bottom of the pit,” wrote Ghonim in a Sept.16 open letter to the army posted on his Facebook account.

Some experts believe that Egypt’s military advisors simply may not know anything other than the exertion of power through brute force. The current leaders running the country, after all, also ruled during Mubarak’s three decades in office.

Mohamed Tantawi, the de facto head of state, was Mubarak’s former minister of defense and a close ally.

“The poor transitional leadership is definitely the result of self interest by a military led by former regime members,” Soliman said. “But it is also sheer ignorance on their part. The role of the army has always been to fight, not to govern.”

Whether for nefarious reasons or because of downright ineptitude, the military government appears to be setting a political course that closely resembles the country’s autocratic past, experts said.

Human rights groups in Egypt have described recent crackdowns on the independent press as evidence that the “Mubarak regime persists” to this day.

Several satellite channels — including one run by Al Jazeera — had their licenses revoked earlier this month for operating without the proper permits, according to Egypt’s information minister. Similar steps were taken in the months before the country’s last widely disputed parliamentary elections in 2010.

“It should be noted that in the run-up to the 2010 elections, the most infamous in Egypt’s history, the Mubarak regime launched an all-out attack on various forms of media … impeding their ability to monitor the elections and expose irregularities,” the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies said in a press release on Sept. 19.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s revolutionaries have become increasingly fatigued by months of small-scale demonstrations and strikes that seem unable to foster swifter political reform.

A recent protest against the expansion of Egypt’s emergency law drew only a few hundred activists outside the parliament building in downtown Cairo. Still, the diehard activists that led the charge during the January uprising say they will not quit.

“This is normal for us to have ups and downs,” said human rights lawyer Ragia Omran at the demonstration outside Egypt’s parliament. “Our revolution is definitely not over. It’s still a work in progress.”

More GlobalPost

More Jon Jensen.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 21 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Salon is proud to feature content from GlobalPost, an awarding-winning international news site that focuses on original reporting from journalists stationed around the world. GlobalPost combines traditional journalistic values with the power of new media to offer a fresh perspective on global developments.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
195 points196 points | 7 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
137 points138 points | comment
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
47 points48 points | 8 comments
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
35 points36 points | 19 comments
vote
With the help of Photoshop, artist Yao Lu has made shanshui — traditional ink paintings — of China's landfills
19 points20 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations