Except for the Muslim Brotherhood, reaction to the terse announcement issued by the military on Tuesday was largely negative, Khaled Dawoud reports The long awaited statement issued by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) on Tuesday was unlikely to restore calm in Egypt or overcome deep divisions that have marked the political scene in Egypt since former president Hosni Mubarak was ousted on 11 February, experts and members of various political groups agreed. For the thousands of mostly young Egyptians who have been holding a sit- in at Tahrir Square since Friday and the political parties supporting their stand, the statement delivered by Assistant Minister of Defence Major General Mohsen El-Fangari only added insult to injury. The statement hardly met any of their key demands, topped by the immediate trial of Mubarak, his sons and top officers at the Interior Ministry who are charged with taking part in killing nearly 840 people during the events of the 25 January Revolution. Worse was what many called the threatening language and tone that El-Fangari used while delivering his statement. The SCAF, which is effectively ruling the country during this transitional stage set off by the popular revolt in January and February, has been largely silent since the outbreak of the latest round of violence in late June when protesters in Tahrir clashed with anti- riot police over the treatment of the families of those killed during the height of the revolution. It maintained the same silence after groups supporting the revolution said they would organise a bigger protest after courts ordered the release on bail of seven police officers charged with killing protesters, as well as the acquittal of some former government ministers charged with corruption. However, it seemed that the army felt it had no option but to clarify its stand after demonstrators in Tahrir and Suez escalated their protests, blocking major government buildings such as Mogamma Al-Tahrir to which thousands of people go everyday to obtain official documents, and threatening to block trains and underground services. The "red line" for the army, it appears, was a threat by protesters to block the passage of the Suez Canal, the only remaining major source of income for the state as revenues from tourism and foreign investments were drastically reduced in the wake of the uprising which toppled the regime. Salah Adli, a member of the National Association for Change and one of the key groups that took part in the revolution, said the most dangerous part in the SCAF statement was "veiled threats it included, saying that freedom of expression will be respected within limits of the law while ignoring the fact that the law he is referring to was the same one Mubarak used to suppress the opposition for decades." Adli, like many other opposition figures, blamed the SCAF for pushing Tahrir protesters towards confrontation. "Why did we have to wait for five months until the SCAF intervened and decided to meet some of our demands? Why do they insist that the revolution we had only meant changing Mubarak and his son instead of changing the entire regime as the people in Tahrir demanded for 18 days in January?" Adli asked. Hamada El-Kashef, a member of the Union of the Revolution's Youth, said the SCAF statement was "the flip side of the coin of the speech delivered by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf on Monday." While Sharaf used non- confrontational language, adding to his image as a gentle figure, "the army wanted to show us it means business." El-Kashef also said he found it "difficult to understand why the military council had to wait for five months before declaring its firm support for Sharaf." Since he took office, Sharaf has been seen as a rather weak prime minister with limited authority. The real power is in the hands of the SCAF since Mubarak was removed, according to observers and political activists. Mohamed El-Baradei, a strong presidential candidate and former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, offered a rather reserved reaction, saying he was "certain that the army and the people share the same goal, which is to help Egypt overcome this current critical stage in its history." He added that Sharaf "did exert his utmost effort to meet the demands of the revolution, but it is obvious that what he achieved until now is far less than what the people expect." El-Baradei added that "before we blame Prime Minister Sharaf, we should ask ourselves why this government did not succeed in achieving the demands of the revolution." Indirectly blaming the SCAF, El-Baradei said Sharaf's government was not given the proper mandate to achieve the tasks it was expected to perform, and that without fixing this problem, "it will be absurd to simply reshuffle the cabinet." He added that the priority now should be "forming a national salvation government that meets the people's demands, restores security, and holds accountable those responsible for killing protesters and widespread corruption." Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood, seen as the most organised political group with a chance to win a large number of seats in parliament in the upcoming elections due in September, maintained its support for the SCAF, and praised El-Fangari's statement. Mahmoud Ghozlan, Muslim Brotherhood spokesman, said it was important to affirm that "the army will not allow chaos to spread in the country." The Brotherhood and other political Islamic groups voted in support of constitutional amendments proposed by the SCAF in March that set a timetable for the country's future. According to that plan, parliamentary elections would be held in September. Then, newly elected parliament members would select a committee to draft a new constitution. The plan was strongly opposed by secular and leftist groups who credit themselves for starting the revolution. Fearing that the Muslim Brotherhood would win a big majority in parliament, they warned that the constitution they would produce might not necessarily be a reflection of the democratic principles they aim for. Thus, they demand that the new constitution be drafted first. In his statement on Tuesday, El-Fangari tried to strike a compromise, saying the SCAF would ask political groups to draft a number of "governing principles" which would guide the drafting of the new constitution by the upcoming parliament. But he insisted that the army would stick to the dates set by the 19 March referendum: parliament elections, followed by drafting the constitution and presidential elections before the end of the year. Emad Gad, an expert at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, praised the army's decision to draft "guiding principles" for the new constitution, "although it remains unclear how this document will be drafted, who will draft it and when the deadline is to produce it." Other established opposition parties who have charged in the past of colluding with the Mubarak regime, such as the leftist Tagammu Party, also welcomed the SCAF statement. However, Egypt's political scene has changed radically after the 25 January Revolution, and most of the newly created non-Islamic parties rejected El-Fangari's statement, claiming it was too little, too late.
