نيو يورك تايمز الثورة وما بعدها

But in June 2012, a series of events threw the country’s troubled transition to democracy deeper into confusion as Egypt’s two most powerful forces — the military establishment and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group — moved toward a showdown. A swift series of steps by the military and its allies in the judiciary left many observers in Egypt and the West wondering if they were witnessing a subtle military coup, or even a counterrevolution.
For decades the Brotherhood had been the primary opposition to the military dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. When the unrest of the Arab Spring came to Egypt in January 2011, it was young liberal activists who ignited the protests, but it was the Brotherhood’s decision to join that gave them critical mass. Yet it was the military that ousted Mr. Mubarak the following month and took direct control.
The generals were hailed initially as the nation’s heroes, a feeling that gradually turned to dismay as questions arose over whether they truly intended to hand over power.
The Brotherhood and the Military in Conflict
The Brotherhood was the clear winner in the parliamentary elections that ended in January 2012, holding roughly half of the seats. In March, the Brotherhood reneged on a promise not to seek the presidency. Its initial candidate was rejected by the courts on the basis of a Mubarak-era conviction, and the party’s back-up candidate,  Mohamed Morsi, took his place.
In a first round of voting in May, the winners were Mr. Morsi and Ahmed Shafik, a retired Air Force general who had been Mr. Mubarak’s final prime minister. Mr. Shafik campaigned on promises to bring back law and order and to rein in “dark forces,’’ a reference to Islamists. Liberals and secular activists, who had split their votes among two failed candidates, despaired at finding themselves caught between the military and religious conservatives.
Judges and the Military Act
In June, days before the presidential runoff, the military and its allies on the judiciary took steps that critics charged amounted to a coup. The military council ordered Parliament dissolved after the court ruled that the law under which it had been elected was partly unconstitutional. In the same stroke, the military assumed legislative power and severely limited the authority of the presidency.
The charter the generals issued gives them control of all laws and the national budget, immunity from any oversight and the power to veto a declaration of war. The generals also seized control of the process of writing a permanent constitution.
When the polls closed on June 17, independent observers said that Mr. Morsi had narrowly won. But it was not until June 24 that the nation’s election commission confirmed that he was the official winner, handing the Brotherhood a symbolic triumph and a new weapon in its struggle for power with the ruling military council. According to the commission, Mr. Morsi won 51.7 percent of the runoff vote and Mr. Shafik won 48.3 percent.
On July 8, Mr. Morsi unexpectedly ordered that Parliament reconvene, in a direct challenge to the military and to the courts, which the next day both reaffirmed their actions in dissolving the body. But the authorities made no move to prevent the legislators from gathering for a brief session on July 10.
Recent Developments
July 10 In a raw contest between Egypt’s competing centers of power, legislators defied the country’s highest court and its most senior generals by holding a brief session of the dissolved Parliament. The session lasted only a few minutes, long enough for lawmakers to approve a proposal to refer the matter of Parliament’s dissolution by the military to the Court of Cassation, a high appeals court.
July 9 Egypt’s constitutional court, made up of Mubarak-era judges, insisted that an earlier court decision that led to the dissolving of Parliament must stand, ratcheting up a confrontation with the new president, Mohamed Morsi.
July 8 Newly elected president Mohamed Morsi ordered the return of the dissolved Islamist-led Parliament until a new one could be elected, challenging a decision by generals who had dismissed the assembly based on a court ruling. A parliamentary election will be held within 60 days after a new constitution is approved by the nation. In June, the country’s highest court ordered Parliament dissolved after finding fault with the election process.
June 30 Mohamed Morsi was formally sworn in as the first democratically elected president of Egypt, signaling a new stage in an ever murkier struggle to define the future of the nation after six decades of military-backed autocracy. Mr. Morsi, against his wishes, took the oath before a court of Mubarak-appointed judges; he had vowed to swear in before the democratically elected and Islamist-led Parliament, but the generals dissolved it on the eve of his election under the pretext of a ruling from the very same court.
June 25 A day after being officially recognized as the new president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood moved into the presidential office last occupied by Hosni Mubarak.
June 24 Election regulators named Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood the winner of Egypt’s first competitive presidential elections, handing the Islamist group a symbolic triumph and a new weapon in its struggle for power with the ruling military council. He becomes Egypt’s fifth president and the first from outside the military.
June 22 The country’s military rulers warned that they would use “the utmost firmness” against anyone they deem to threaten “the higher interests of the country” just as tens of thousands of demonstrators flooded into Tahrir Square here for the fourth day of demonstrations against the dissolution of Parliament and reassertion of their power.
June 20 Egypt’s election commission injected new volatility into the country’s growing political and constitutional crisis, deciding to delay its final determination of who had won the presidential runoff election one day before the scheduled announcement. The delay came as Egyptians were still grappling with confusion over the health of the imprisoned former president, Hosni Mubarak. The day before, Egyptian officials and state media had reported him near death, but this account was contradicted by Mr. Mubarak’s lawyer, who insisted that he simply had fallen down in the prison bathroom.
June 19 Government media said Hosni Mubarak was on life support at a military hospital in Cairo after being declared “clinically dead” by doctors. After suffering a stroke in prison, Mr. Mubarak, 84, was moved to a hospital. Doctors said they were unable to revive him after he went into cardiac arrest, state news media said.
June 18 Egyptian news organizations declared Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood the winner of the country’s first competitive presidential race just hours after the ruling military council issued an interim constitution granting itself broad power over the future government, all but eliminating the president’s authority in an apparent effort to guard against just such a victory.
Background: Before the Revolution
Egypt is a heavyweight in Middle East diplomacy, in part because of its peace treaty with Israel, and as a key ally of the United States. The country, often the fulcrum on which currents in the region turn, also has one of the largest and most sophisticated security forces in the Middle East.
Hosni Mubarak, ousted from office in February 2011, had been president of Egypt since the assassination of Anwar el-Sadat in October 1981. (Mr. Mubarak had served as Sadat’s vice president.) Until the recent unrest, Mr. Mubarak had firmly resisted calls to name a successor. He had also successfully negotiated complicated issues of regional security, solidified a relationship with Washington, maintained cool but correct ties with Israel and sharply suppressed Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism — along with dissent in general.
The litany of complaints against Mr. Mubarak’s autocratic rule was well known to anyone who has spent time in any city in Egypt. The police were brutal. Elections were rigged. Corruption was rampant. Life was getting harder for the masses as the rich grew richer and the poor grew poorer. Even as Egypt’s economy enjoyed record growth in recent years, the number of people living in poverty actually grew.
While Mr. Mubarak’s regime had become increasingly unpopular, the public long seemed mired in apathy. For years, the main opposition to his rule appeared to be the Muslim Brotherhood, which was officially banned but still commanded significant support.
In 2010, speculation rose as to whether Mr. Mubarak, who had undergone gall bladder surgery that year and appeared increasingly frail, would run in the 2011 elections or seek to install his son Gamal as a successor. Mohamed ElBaradei, former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, publicly challenged Mr. Mubarak in the election but drew little support. The Mubarak political machine had steamrolled its way to its regular lopsided victory in a parliamentary vote.
A Police State
Egypt’s police bureaucracy reaches into virtually every aspect of public life. Police officers direct traffic and investigate murders, but also monitor elections and issue birth and death certificates and passports. In a large, impoverished nation, the services the police provide give them wide — and, critics say, unchecked — power.
The police have a long and notorious track record of torture and cruelty to average citizens. The Mubarak government for decades maintained what it called an Emergency Law, passed first in 1981 to combat terrorism after the assassination of Mr. Sadat. The law allows police to arrest people without charge, detain prisoners indefinitely, limit freedom of expression and assembly, and maintain a special security court.
In 2010, the government promised that it would only use the law to combat terrorism and drug trafficking, but terrorism was defined so broadly as to render that promise largely meaningless, according to human rights activists and political prisoners.
Revolution: End of the Mubarak Era
When the uprising, inspired by the revolution in Tunisia, began on Jan. 25, 2011, the anger fueling it was not new. It had been seething beneath the surface for many years, exploding at times, but never before in such widespread, sustained fury. The grievances were economic, social, historic and deeply personal. Egyptians often speak of their dignity, which many said has been wounded by Mr. Mubarak’s monopoly on power, his iron-fisted approach to security and corruption that had been allowed to fester. Even government allies and insiders were quick to acknowledge that the protesters had legitimate grievances that needed to be addressed.
After 18 days of massive public demonstrations against Mr. Mubarak’s rule, more than 800 unarmed people were thought to have been killed by the police. Mr. Mubarak lost the support of his military, which promised to protect the demonstrators. On Feb. 11, 2011, he resigned and turned power over to the military.
In August 2011, Mr. Mubarak was wheeled into a courtroom cage on a hospital bed to stand trial, charged with corruption and complicity in the killing of those protestors. It was a sight that few Egyptians could have imagined as the year began, and that many had doubted they would ever see.
In June 2012, he was found guilty of being an accessory to murder for failing to stop the killing of unarmed demonstrators during the uprising in January 2011 that ended his rule. He was sentenced to life in prison. His sentence was met by several days of angry demonstrations by tens of thousands in Cairo and around Egypt who said it was not harsh enough.
An Ailing Economy
Since the revolution, Egypt’s most important sources of income have remained steady, with tourism the notable exception. The other pillars of the economy — gas and oil sales; Suez Canal revenues and remittances from workers abroad — are either stable or growing, according to Central Bank figures.
But those sources of income accomplished little more than propping up an ailing economy. Over all, economic activity came to a standstill for months, with growth expected to tumble to under 2 percent in 2011 from a robust 7 percent in 2010. Official unemployment rates rose to at least 12 percent from 9 percent. Foreign investment is negligible.
Part of the blame for Egypt’s economic malaise rests with its caretaker cabinet, which reports to the ruling military council. The ministers, mindful that several businessmen who served in the Mubarak government sit in jail on corruption convictions, are reluctant to sign off on new projects.
Elections: Tensions Rise Between Islamists and Military Rulers
Egypt’s transition to democracy has been not been an easy one. Since Mr. Mubarak’s fall, the ruling military establishment has been accused of resurrecting the Mubarak playbook to stay in power. Activists say the military has deployed draconian measures to silence critics, banning strikes and singling out individual critics.
In early November 2011, as parliamentary elections approached, the appearance of posters of the military’s top officer, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, and the slogan “Egypt Above All” fueled widespread suspicions that the generals wanted him to be the fifth military president in a row since the armed forces seized Egypt’s government in 1952.
The generals denied any connection to the campaign, but activists recognized that toppling Mr. Mubarak turned out to be the easy part and that they should have pushed harder for sweeping change while they had momentum.
When the final voting ended in January 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party — which was outlawed under Mr. Mubarak — was the clear winner. The Salafis, an alliance of ultraconservative Islamists, won the next largest share of seats.
The election results set up a potential confrontation between Parliament and Egypt’s military rulers. The biggest questions facing Egypt are whether the Muslim Brotherhood and the military turn to conflict or compromise, and how far or how fast the Brotherhood might push to make Egypt more Islamic.
On Jan. 23, 2012, Egypt’s first democratically elected Parliament in more than 60 years began in chaos, with thousands of demonstrators gathered outside in an unruly mix of celebration and protest.
Egypt’s Parliament remains subordinate to the ruling military council. Although the generals promised to turn over power to civilians by the end of June 2012, after the ratification of a new constitution and the election of a president, they have balked at submitting to full civilian control or completely ending martial law.
Military Power Play as Morsi Wins the Presidency
After the ouster of Mr. Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood had pledged not to field a presidential candidate. But in March 2012, the Brotherhood reneged on its promise not to seek the presidency. Its initial candidate was rejected by the courts on the basis of a Mubarak-era conviction, and the party’s back-up candidate, Mohamed Morsi, took his place.
In May, in the first round of voting, the winners were Mr. Morsi and Ahmed Shafik, a retired Air Force general who had been Mr. Mubarak’s final prime minister. Mr. Shafik campaigned on promises to bring back law and order and to rein in “dark forces,’’ a reference to Islamists.
In June, days before the final presidential runoff, the military and its allies on the judiciary took steps that critics charged amounted to a coup. The military council ordered the Islamist Parliament dissolved after the court ruled that the law under which it had been elected was partly unconstitutional. In the same stroke, the military assumed legislative power and severely limited the authority of the presidency.
The charter the generals issued gives them control of all laws and the national budget, immunity from any oversight and the power to veto a declaration of war. The generals also seized control of the process of writing a permanent constitution.
When the polls closed on June 17, independent observers said that Mr. Morsi had narrowly won. But it was not until June 24 that the nation’s election commission confirmed that he was the official winner, handing the Islamist group a symbolic triumph and a new weapon in its struggle for power with the ruling military council. According to the commission, Mr. Morsi won 51.7 percent of the runoff vote and Mr. Shafik won 48.3 percent.
On July 8, Mr. Morsi unexpectedly ordered that Parliament reconvene, in a direct challenge to the military and to the courts, which the next day both reaffirmed their actions in dissolving the body.