The Arab Spring and Arab Thaw by Davis John;

Author:Davis, John;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

Egypt has come a long way in less than two years. It has ended Mubarak’s 30 years of autocratic rule and overcome military missteps during the transition. It held its first democratic multiparty parliamentary and presidential elections that were free and fair. Egypt now has its first civilian president in 60 years who retired the top military brass appointed by Mubarak without a fight. In addition, President Morsi has met with the families of the Tahrir Square martyrs and has arranged payment for those who were killed or wounded. He also pardoned thousands of protesters who had been detained or tried for actions in support of the revolution between January 2011 and the end of the military rule in June 2012.215 In another sign of change, people now feel free to criticize the president and demonstrate against his policies.

215 Associated Press, “Morsi Pardons Political Prisoners,” Washington Post, 12 October 2012, p. A10. Continuing street protests have distracted the Morsi administration from dealing with a faltering economy, which suffers from a depleted cash reserve and a balance of payments crisis. Through diplomacy, he has managed to ease the crisis by receiving $1.5 billion as direct budget support from Saudi Arabia, a pledge of $2 billion from Qatar, and a $200 million loan from China. Political turmoil made it difficult to attract other foreign aid or convince foreign investors to come to Egypt. The attack on the US Embassy in Cairo on 11 September 2012 resulted in a hold on the $450 million in US emergency aid to Egypt.216 Although Morsi secured a $4.1 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it was also delayed because of the protests and clashes between political factions over the new constitution. For the same reason, Germany postponed a plan to forgive $316 million of Egypt’s debt.217 Further civil strife would hinder the country’s economic recovery and make it hard to address the country’s unemployment problems.

216 Walter Pincus, “Foreign Aid Under Fire on Many Fronts,” Washington Post, 2 October 2012, p. A17. 217 “Egypt Braced for Fresh Anti-Charter Protests,” Al Jazeera, 18 December 2012, p. 2. Moreover, the revolutionary gains over the past two years are threatened by the failure of all stakeholders to work together for the good of the country. The transition to democracy suffered a major setback when the Mubarak-appointed Supreme Constitutional Court dissolved the first constitution-drafting assembly in April and the democratically elected lower chamber of parliament in June.

The second attempt to write a constitution and Morsi’s actions to move it to a vote have divided rather than united people. Secular liberals and Christians walked out of the constituent assembly because they were under-represented and their proposals overruled by the Islamist majority. The new constitution, while approved by a popular vote, has not been accepted by their groups. They have filed challenges in court to throw it out and continued street protests. As Hassan Abu Taleb, an analyst at Cairo’s Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, pointed out, secular revolutionaries are “very angry and ready to use violence.

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