Two years have gone since Egypt's peaceful revolution of January 25 has impressed the world by calling for freedom, equality, democracy, economical development, social justice and human dignity. As proud as I was in 2011 and 2012, I participated with my country men and women last Friday in marking the revolution second anniversary in Tahrir Square. This year it was different: Egypt has an elected president. But the people were outraged that the president in the last 7 months of holding office has worked exclusively to maximize the political gains of his Muslim Brotherhood and never paid attention to achieve any of the revolution's objectives. He never even tried. Above all, his MB is today above the law; not registered as an NGO, as a charity or as a political party and its books and finance are beyond any public scrutinization by the government. Morsi's actions resulted in achieving exactly the opposite to the revolution's great objectives. In the freedom file, Egyptians are still attacked when they demonstrate and even killed. The most recent victims were in the last several days, reaching hundreds killed and wounded especially in the cities of Suez and Port Said. Press freedom is less today and all the government-own media have turned into a propaganda tool for the MB. In term of equality, the country is polarized like never before and human rights including women rights and minority rights have all regressed big time under an Islamist constitution which is forced on the country with only 20% of the eligible voters approving it. As for democracy, first of all the election of the president was not done under his watch. But since his election Morsi turned into a dictator by issuing illegal decrees without holding any public referendums. He has also given his decrees immunity against any legal challenge by the country's courts. He sacked the Prosecutor General and politically appointed another from the MB's ranks who is not trusted by the majority of the judges. The most recent blander is sending 21 accused to death for last year violence following a soccer match in Port Said. None of the high ranking police officers who were accused was sentenced. Although he won the election with a narrow margin of only 2% Morsi appointed a mediocre PM with zero experience, his only qualifications are being a member of the MB and he is a good yes-man. Morsi also appointed his MB friends to ministerial positions and to posts of governors and mayors. And he fired the army two top generals and put them under house arrest. All done in his first 100 days in office! Morsi ringed on every agreement he has made with the opposition parties. He failed to keep his election promises of solving the problems of traffic jams and garbage collection in big cities in his first 100 days in office. Any visitor today to Cairo realizes that both problems have not been solved even 200 days after Morsi's rule. As for planning to achieve economic development and social justice the president also gets a big fat zero. The dollar is climbing and inflation is running at 20%. Egyptian big businesses are trying to sell their assets and fled the country. There is a fuel shortage and the government is lifting the subsidy for establishments catering to tourists, indeed a wrong timing for an ailing industry. The same International Monetary Fund's $4.8 billion loan which the MB rejected, although its terms were favorable, under the none MB government a year ago is now unattainable even with harsher terms because of the political stupidity of Morsi and his current government. Because the new Islamist constitution decrees that the government has to consult Al Azhar when it issues Treasury Bills, Al Azhar rejected the government proposal, even though it labeled the TBs “Islamic". Egypt's poor especially in marginalized regions like Sinai and Upper Egypt where poverty rates are double the national average of 40% are still suffering. Meanwhile without justification or transparency Qatar was given exclusive rights to invest any amount anywhere any time. Why Qatar? Because Qatar has financed Morsi's election campaign!? Moreover, Morsi has no national plan for domestic or for direct foreign investments. While Morsi deserves an F, the Egyptian opposition deserves a B. Since November 22, the black day in the history of the revolution when the elected president turned himself into a dictator, the opposition is working together via a National Salvation Front. They learned a lesson: never to trust the MB to deliver on any of its promises. Although the opposition parties can use merging to pool resources, they still remained divided. But there are candidates for merging among the top three or four parties which include center and left to the center. Dr. Gamal Soltan, professor of political science at the American University in Cairo, told the Washington Post last week that the opposition has learned some lessons from its bitter experiences in Egypt's fledgling and deeply imperfect democracy. But the various groups are unlikely to overcome their differences in time for the next parliamentary elections and for some of them, “ideological principles still matter more than political gains and political power."
-- Prof Mohamed Elmasry, FIEEE, FRSC, FCAE, FEIC Prof Emeritus of Computer Engineering, Univ of Waterloo http://www.eic-ici.ca/english/tour/cit08/Elmasry.pdf Member, Editorial Board, The Canadian Charger Among the 500 Most Influential Muslims in The World http://www.thecanadiancharger.com/page.php?id=5&a=238
