This week's welcome reduction of the curfew from 7pm to 9pm does not apply tomorrow. Residents of governorates in which the curfew is enforced are expected to remain indoors on Friday from 7pm onwards amid apprehension that demonstrations called for by the Muslim Brotherhood could end in violent clashes. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior security source said he does not anticipate large demonstrations being staged, though the possibility of violence on the sidelines of even small gatherings remains. Security operations have dealt successive blows to the Muslim Brotherhood over the last two weeks. Its leaders have been arrested and many rank and file members detained. The group's communication channels have been all but switched off given the proliferation of extraordinary measures — including the tapping of mobile phones — allowed under the month-long state of emergency declared two weeks ago. Check points along main roads between governorates are designed to prevent any inflow of demonstrators to Cairo and Giza. Last Friday the tight security successfully foiled Muslim Brotherhood plans to stage 28 marches in the capital. “We want to avoid the arrival of swelling marches which then attack public buildings and prompt a firm reaction from security forces,” says the security official. “The people want peace and quiet. They've had enough of riots and instability.” The police and other government agencies blame Muslim Brotherhood marches orchestrated two weeks ago to protest against the death of hundreds during the dispersal of the Brotherhood's sit-ins for attacks on public buildings and assaults on citizens. The Muslim Brotherhood denies the allegations. State officials are hoping that Egypt has seen the end of angry demonstrations and bloodshed. Attention, they say, should now go towards promptly implementing the roadmap, specified on 3 July by Minister of Defence Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, that will lead to a resumption of the democratic process and the holding of elections. This week saw a first step along that road when amendments to the controversial constitution, drafted by Islamists and approved at a referendum by a fifth of eligible voters, were passed to interim President Adli Mansour. Government bodies are also working to prepare for legislative and then presidential elections. An electoral law is being considered and voter lists are being vacuumed of what one government official says are “duplications and non-illegible voters”. “Not that many names will be removed but there is no doubt the lists need cleaning,” she added. Hopeful candidates are also preparing themselves, not least members of leading families in the Delta and Upper Egypt who traditionally supported deposed president Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party. Established parties like the Wafd and new parties like Al-Dostour are busy vetting possible candidates while Islamist groups, whose leaders concede they have lost public sympathy, remain optimistic — in public at least — that they will retain half the seats they won in 2011. But what of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, in all this? A leading Salafi figure, who asked for his name to be withheld, told Al-Ahram Weekly that efforts are underway to “encourage members of the FJP to take part in the elections”. He refused to be drawn on whether they will work or not. In press statements this week leaders of Salafist parties, including Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, have called for the Muslim Brotherhood to be allowed to turn a new page and take part in the political process within the framework of the roadmap. Independent and official sources confirm Salafist accounts of “soft mediation” but say that it remains inconclusive. As far as the state is concerned, any arrangement that allows the Muslim Brotherhood to retain legal status and the FJP to contest legislative elections must be based on their recognition of the legitimacy of the 30 June demonstrations that called for an end to Mohamed Morsi's rule. While sceptical of the results of any mediation, one official source conceded that a deal of sorts with the Muslim Brotherhood would help reduce international pressure on Egypt. While Prime Minister Hazem Al-Beblawi has issued statements insisting security operations designed to restore stability are coupled with continued openness to political groups willing to re-examine their positions and move forward, and Adel Labib, minister of local development, says he has called on governors to follow all possible channels of reconciliation in pursuit of stability and an end to tension, a security official who spoke to the Weekly insisted security operations would not be side-tracked for the sake of political accommodation. “The security operation will continue as planned. There is no going back now,” he said. The security operation has been toughest in Sinai where the army has jihadists firmly in its sights. “They are terrorists and will be treated as such,” said the security source. There are those within the security apparatus who hope the definition of terrorism can still be expanded to include all Muslim Brotherhood members and not just the group's leaders, many of whom face charges of complicity to murder and incitement to violence. Their hopes have been obstructed until now by the efforts of the liberal camp within the government which, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Bahaaeddin, has advanced a scheme for reconciliation. It is an open secret that security hawks within the cabinet are seeking to marginalise — some suggest have them removed from government — those who advocate reconciliation. Were it not for fear of hostile international reaction to their dismissal many commentators think the hawks would have already succeeded. As it is government officials say they already have to put up with enough international pressure, and will continue to do so throughout the remaining months of the roadmap, due to end next summer with the election of a new president. Political scientist Mohamed Al-Agati says there are many loopholes in the transition process that started with Al-Sisi's announcement of the roadmap on 3 July. “There are many things that should have been done differently. We should have started with presidential elections. We would at least have been governed by an elected head of state as we moved on to parliamentary elections and the drafting of the constitution,” he says. But Al-Agati is not dwelling on might-have-beens. Any concerns he has over the nature of the transition are firmly on hold. The key issue now “is that the roadmap be promptly executed so that we can move to the rule of elected bodies”. “Of course there is room to speed up the process,” says Al-Agati. “The intervals between the three main stops of the process — the constitution, legislative elections and presidential elections — could be shortened. The most important thing now, though, is to get done with the scheme we have. We can see how to fix things once the transition is over.” (see pp.2-9)
