- EGYPT
- December 12, 2012
- 6 minutes read
Egypt Opinion Leaders: Overthrow Attempts Against Democracy Aim to Delay Democratization
A number of Egyptian professors, academics and politicians representing leaders of public opinion criticized attempts, by some party chiefs who lost the last presidential election battle to Mohamed Morsi, to prolong the current tumultuous transitional period and prevent the election of State institutions, in a vengeful coup against democracy.
Dr. Mohamed Hussein, Political Science Professor at Cairo University, said that the real face of the coup hopefuls emerged in recent events, after Mamdouh Hamza announced he would join the coup against legitimacy with Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabbahi, and that they would form a ‘civilian’ Presidential Council – forgetting that a civilian President is in office right now, elected in a free democratic race only four months ago.
Although that delusional Presidential Council is not based on any constitutional traditions or laws, nor international norms, it does reflect the real motives of a group of politicians looking for a place in the country’s new political arena after a majority of the people rejected them, through the ballot box.
Magdy Hussein, the new head of the Labor Party, revealed that Sabbahi and his comrades do not believe in democracy or the achievements of the revolution. They ignore the fact that the people have already voted-in the first civilian president of Egypt. Even the circulation of power, with constitutional guarantee, does not impress them.
Hussein further said, "Since the end of the presidential elections, Moussa and Sabbahi’s actions resemble a counter-revolution, an attempt to undo what we have just accomplished, using the Constitutional Court, appointed by former President Hosni Mubarak, which was determined to disband the Shura Council (second chamber of Egyptian Parliament) and the Constituent Assembly (tasked with writing the country’s new national charter) after it casually sacked the first democratically elected People’s Assembly (lower house of Parliament). They even reversed the facts, claiming that the President’s endeavors to achieve objectives of the revolution are ‘dictatorial’.
"The coup hopefuls believe that popular approval of the Constitution, with a consensus of 90% according to testimonies of some secularists and liberals, would mean total loss for them in forthcoming parliamentary elections, after their earlier loss in the presidential race. Hence, they joined an alliance with counter-revolution old guard, cronies and supporters of the former regime, ultimately coming up with a terribly outdated idea to create an illegitimate so-called ‘civilian’ Presidential Council."
Columnist and analyst Talat Rumaih, former editor-in-chief of Al-Shaab newspaper, criticized members of what they called the National Salvation Front for inciting the rebels to collaborate with the old-regime holdovers.
"What is happening is a clear coup against legitimacy and the ballot box. Indeed, this is evident confirmation that they do not recognize the election results. The issue is no longer personal for certain parties. It is more about their rejection of democracy from the outset, and also total rejection of the idea of ??political pluralism."
Rumaih revealed that Egypt is the scene of a conspiracy dragging it in "a spiral of chaos and confusion, especially as we are only days away from the end of the transitional phase".
Essam Sultan, Vice-Chairman of Wassat Party, said that Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei told the UK’s Financial Times he successfully united revolutionaries and old regime holdovers to confront the Islamists.
Sultan added, "Former regime holdovers do not know how to engage in dialogues, they simply use knives, bullets and Molotov cocktails".
Mohamed Al-Omda, former independent member of parliament, said: "The cause of the current crisis is that some former presidential candidates’ main concern was to conduct elections once again. Meanwhile, certain parties’ main objective is to win a greater number of seats in the next parliament, even if in the process they violate every last principle of democracy".
