The consecutive announcement on Monday evening of a constitutional declaration that put a nine-month limit to the new transitional phase, and the announcement of Hazem Al-Biblawi, a liberal economist, as prime minister on Tuesday afternoon ended a considerable deal of speculation over the moves beyond the ouster of Mohamed Morsi as president on 3 July, following huge nationwide demonstrations. The announcement of the over 30-article constitutional declaration offered a version that many insiders suggest is basically a patchwork of alternative drafts that were offered up for the joint consideration of Interim President Adli Mansour and the leadership of the Armed Forces. A presidential source says that the final copy is not to the satisfaction of all parties fully. “But inevitably it is a draft that does not antagonise anyone because it tries to accommodate the viewpoints of all concerned political players, including the Nour Party because they remain a part of the political equation even if they took a step back.” The same criteria applied to the choice of Al-Biblawi as prime minister. He is an economist with globally liberal views who is tasked with working with a team to rescue a much devastated economy. From the perspective of the army leadership Al-Biblawi is a good choice given that unlike Mohamed Al-Baradei, now assigned vice president for foreign affairs, he was not a direct partner to the opposition of Morsi. The fact that Al-Biblawi does not necessarily have a wide constituency of supporters, from the point of view of the army leadership as one source said, is not really an issue because “after all this is a man who accepted to lead a rescue team for a short period of time at a very sensitive stage.” Joining a new wave of demonstrations to celebrate the ouster of Morsi by the presidential palace at Heliopolis, many citizens suggested that the economy should top the priority of the new prime minister whose name had not been announced up until then. “If the economy picks up it would be the right start because the lesser poverty you have the lesser anger you suffer from,” said Amira, a teacher. Girgis, her husband, agreed. He argued that to have a prime minister who had served a government post before would be of use given that he would have a direct idea of the problems and could therefore move fast on fixing them. “It is the economy,” said Hanawa, a civil servant, to a firm agreeing nod of her husband Ali, a retired engineer. “The millions that took to the streets on 30 June had one common issue that brought them together despite their otherwise very diverse political interests: their living conditions were deteriorating. This is not just about the poorer people but also about us in the middle class,” she said. Mansour, Al-Biblawi and Al-Baradei will work to execute the two key tasks included in the constitutional declaration: an amended constitution to be put up to a referendum, parliamentary elections and presidential elections. The details of transition as stipulated in the constitutional declaration might not be liked by everyone. Several political quarters expressed preference for giving precedence to the presidential elections. “This was the key demand of the demonstrations of 30 June,” said Mohamed Othman, a leading figure of the Strong Egypt Party. On 30 June, the first anniversary of the inauguration of Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected president, millions of Egyptians took to the streets demanding an end to his term which had three years left and calling for early presidential elections. Political scientist and commentator Amr Al-Shobaki agrees that the constitutional declaration is not the perfect text. He acknowledges small and big issues. Like other commentators and politicians, Al-Shobaki is particularly concerned about what he qualifies as the “unmistakable exaggerated accommodation made for the Nour Party” in the declaration despite the fact that their weight on the street is not that big — especially now. The definition of Islamic Sharia in the constitutional declaration is orthodox enough for the Nour but it goes beyond the bounds of duty for many others especially those forces who have been calling for the 30 June demonstrations that effectively ousted the Islamic regime and not just Morsi, Al-Shobaki suggested. The debate over the keenness of the army leadership to accommodate the concerns of the Nour goes beyond the constitutional declaration. This week, the Nour blocked two names for the prime minister's post: Al-Baradei, the inevitable beacon of the 25 January Revolution who has the uncontested support of the revolutionary forces, and Ziad Bahaaeddin, a former chairman of the stock market, due to their incompatibility with the Salafist taste of religiosity. Nadia, a high school teacher in her early 60s, said she was “very disappointed when the name of Al-Baradei was excluded” from the prime minister's list of candidates. “I think it was a big mistake to bow to the pressure of the Salafis. We have tried political Islam and as we have learned from the rule of Morsi it is a total failure. The time has come for a new page to be turned, but we cannot be held hostage to the views of the Nour Party or any political Islamist group. In fact all the parties established on a religious basis should be dissolved if we want to move on without unnecessary hiccups,” said the heavily veiled lady. The public anger with political Islam is hard to exaggerate. This week, political activists and commentators were openly suggesting the need to fully dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood — a close to nine-decade old organisation that was for the most part of its long history outlawed — along with its recently established political arm the Freedom and Justice Party. The anti-Muslim Brotherhood sentiment on the street is not something that could be missed. The clashes that led to the death of some 50 Muslim Brotherhood members at a building of the Republican Guard in Heliopolis in the early hours of Monday in the wake of clashes prompted hardly any sympathy. At times it actually prompted the gloating voices of commentators inundating private and state-run TV. Salah is a Cairo taxi driver in his 30s who said that he voted for the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi during the first and second round of presidential elections in “the hope that the Muslim Brotherhood would be able to rectify the damage that was done to this country by the regime of Hosni Mubarak”, the president ousted by the 25 January Revolution. “But towards the end of the first year it was very clear that the Brotherhood cannot do it; living conditions deteriorated too far,” Salah said. Listening to Quranic recitation as he drove on Monday afternoon along a recently re-operated Salah Salem Road, in front of the venue of the clashes, Salah said he was avoiding the news. He did not want to hear of the news of the slaying but still had no sympathy either for Morsi supporters or for the attempt to break into the building. “It was wrong of them not to admit their failure, but it is very sad that so many young men had to die. Things should not be done that way,” Salah stated. The fire of live ammunition against Morsi supporters at the Republican Guard headquarters in the early hours of Monday, according to army and police officers who were on duty there and then, came after the demonstrators, following dawn prayers, attempted to break into the building on the assumption that the ousted president was held there. The officers and residents of nearby buildings who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly say that the demonstrators were throwing stones, pavement tiles and miscellaneous metal items at the guards who were trying to keep them away from the building and get them to move back to Al-Tayaran Street that leads to a larger Muslim Brotherhood sit-in in Rabaa Al-Adawiya at the entrance of Nasr City. For the protesters who were injured on Monday the story is not about the allegations that other demonstrators were joining them from the Rabaa Al-Adawiya sit-in with arms but about what really happened: army and police officers shot at them leaving many killed and many more injured. On Monday a press conference by the spokesman of the Armed Forces insisted that it was the responsibility of on-duty officers to defend the building against a possible attack. And on Tuesday afternoon, a statement issued by the Armed Forces, following the announcement of the appointment of Al-Biblawi, insisted that any violations of the law would be firmly stopped. The statement underlined the commitment to the announced interim phase roadmap. According to Al-Shobaki, there is much that could be said in criticism of the management of the few days following the ouster of Morsi but what really is important for him is that there is now a roadmap “despite the reservations that many of us might have about some of its details”, and we are walking towards new presidential elections. “Now it is the task of the liberal forces to agree on a candidate to support through elections but what I fail to see so far is the start of a dynamic that could lead to such a consensus within the liberal forces,” Al-Shobaki said. He added that this was precisely the mistake of the liberal forces during the first transition that followed the ouster of Mubarak on 11 February 2011 following the 25 January Revolution. “It was this mistake that allowed for the political hegemony of the Islamist trend and that prompted, among other reasons, the Islamists when they ascended to power to act as if they were actually hijacking the state. Now it is the choice of the liberal and civil forces to learn from the mistakes of the past,” Al-Shobaki said. According to Al-Shobaki, if the transition was to be really successful the Islamists for their part need to learn from the mistakes of the past. The Muslim Brotherhood, he argued, should “do politics” under the umbrella of a party that should refrain from superimposing religion on the details of political equations. “As for organisation it should pursue clear lines of religious affairs away from politics and be subjected, like any other organisation, to the regulations of civil society. This is essential to avoid growing public frustration with the behaviour of supremacy that they have shown,” he added. Amidst a large crowd, by Al-Ittihadiya presidential palace, of celebrating Egyptians who again took to the streets on Sunday, one day before the presidential guard clashes, to reaffirm support for the ouster of Morsi, Amr stood with a lonesome somber face. He was carrying a small white board over which he reminded people of the much forgotten victims killed in demonstrations that have been unfolding since the beginning of the 25 January Revolution in 2011. “People are too jubilant, I think, over the ouster of Morsi. I am personally happy he was removed because his performance was very bad but I think this joy is exaggerated because we keep moving from one challenge to the other. We are moving from a regime that failed to serve the interests of the country to a new transitional phase which would have so many players at once that we cannot really predict their interaction or the influence thereof on the people's interest,” said Amr. An IT engineer, Amr, 26, has been part of the successive waves of demonstrations that in 2011 toppled the three-decade rule of Mubarak with the help of the military. Under Morsi, “the military removed a president who was in fact elected under the rule of the military and according to regulations placed with the consent of the military. “Every step of the way there were martyrs who fell to make freedom possible. Today we are here celebrating the ouster of Morsi because in fact neither the army nor the police were against the people. This time the army, the police and the people were on one side — but the question is will this moment last?” Himself apprehensive about the chances of a long love story between the people and both the police and army — with so many of the jubilant crowd shouting “people, police and army, one hand” — Amr is convinced that it is possible to sustain a good relationship. “It is conditional, however,” he said. The condition for Amr is that “all those responsible for the killing of demonstrators under the ousted rule of Mubarak, during the military-led transition, and under Morsi should be brought to justice — all of them,” he said. He added that if anyone is exempted from accountability this would only mean one thing: “that the unity that brought these three parties together on 30 June” in the largest massive nationwide demonstrations in the country's history, was not a unified effort against autocracy but rather the joint interest to remove a president “who was disliked for different reasons by these three parties”. “And if someone comes to tell me that it was the Muslim Brotherhood who is responsible for the crimes that have been unfolding since the 25 January Revolution as some are trying to argue now, I would tell them; you are not serious about accountability. The future is going to be shadowed with justice undone,” he said. Accountability — or rather transitional justice — is something that this sober man is convinced is crucial for the launch of a better future for the country. He is also convinced that reconciliation is equally important. “If we decide to take revenge we would be in deep trouble because we will be setting the tone for anger and counter-anger,” he argued. Along with these two preconditions, Amr argued, there needs to be an efficient management of the country. “Things have been so poorly managed during the last year and it would take very hard work to fix things,” he said. Unlike many others who were very concerned with who would become prime minister, Amr was not at all interested in the prevailing guessing game. “What counts most is the leeway that would be granted to the prime minister. If he is given serious prerogatives then we could expect to work on the three key files at once: transitional justice, national reconciliation and economic recovery,” Amr said. The call for transitional justice and national reconciliation was echoed right after the ouster of Morsi by very few liberal voices, including former presidential candidate Amr Moussa and former member of parliament Amr Hamzawy. Following the Monday clashes with Morsi supporters the grand sheikh of Al-Azhar added his voice to the still very hesitant calls. “The trend is not one of inclusion; the objective is to exclude the Muslim Brotherhood and to throw its members back into prison. This is something that we will resist,” said Muslim Brotherhood figure Hamdi Hassan. Throughout its history the Muslim Brotherhood had very short honeymoons and long fallouts with consecutive rulers. Today, with its top leadership in jail on charges of incitement and illegal acquisition of arms and with ousted president Morsi himself under house arrest, they seem set for another fallout, especially after having declined all calls for the integration of the Freedom and Justice Party in the transitional phase which is just now being put into motion.
