Mohamed Morsi ousted in Egypt's second revolution in two years
• President ousted as army suspends constitution
• Deposed leader 'being held by authorities in unknown location'
• At least 14 people killed in clashes after announcement
A polarised
Egypt is facing the most critical phase of its post-revolutionary life after Egypt's army ousted the country's elected president,
Mohamed Morsi, and scheduled fresh elections in a what was labelled by the presidency as a "full coup".
The
chief of the armed forces, General Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, announced that
he had suspended the constitution and would nominate the head of the
constitutional court, Adli Mansour, as interim president on Thursday.
Both presidential and parliamentary elections would follow shortly
afterwards and a transitional cabinet would be named.
A statement
on the former president's Twitter and Facebook accounts labelled the
military move a "full coup", after Morsi was officially deposed from
office at 7pm.
In the early evening, a presidential aide told the Guardian Morsi was still free, but late on Wednesday night a
Muslim Brotherhood spokesman said Morsi was being held by the authorities in an unknown location.
A
security official said the head of the Muslim Brotherhood's political
party and the Brotherhood's deputy chief had been arrested. State media
said authorities had issued arrest warrants for 300 other Brotherhood
members.
At least 14 people were killed when Morsi opponents and
supporters clashed after the army's announcment, state media and
officials said. Eight of those reported dead were in the northern city
of Marsa Matrouh Three people were killed and at least 50 wounded in
Alexandria, state news agency MENA reported. A further three died in the
southern city of Minya, it said.
Sisi strove to paint the coup as the fulfilment of the popular will, following days of vast protests against Morsi's rule.
"We will build an Egyptian society that is strong and stable, that will not exclude any one of its sons," he said.
He
spoke of his "historic responsibility" in front of a panel of Egyptians
representing what was intended to be full spectrum of Egyptian life,
including the Coptic pope, the country's most senior Muslim cleric, and
leading secular politician Mohamed ElBaradei.
Symbolically, the
panel also included a representative of the Tamarod campaign, the mass
movement that inspired the millions-strong protests on Sunday that
prompted Morsi's departure.
Sisi's televised statement was met by
rapturous applause and a spectacular fireworks display at the centre of
the anti-Morsi revolt in Cairo's Tahrir Square. The streets of downtown
Cairo became a raucous carnival that lasted into the small hours, with
many waving flags, blasting horns, and dancing. One or two could be seen
drinking in the same streets that four days ago were jammed with
frustrated drivers queuing for hours for petrol.
But five miles in
east Cairo, the mood could not have differed more. A rally of Morsi
supporters booed Sisi's speech, chanting "Down with military rule" – in
scenes that epitomised Egypt's divisions. While secular Egyptians blame
Morsi for autocratic policies that have failed to build consensus,
Islamists are furious that Egypt's first democratically elected
president should have been deposed after just a year in office.
Fireworks burst over opponents of Egypt's Islamist President
Mohammed Morsi in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, July 2, 2013.
Photograph: Amr Nabil/AP
Sisi's statement came several hours after his ultimatum for Morsi to
solve the political crisis had passed without agreement. The delay
confused all parties, who wondered whether a coup would actually take
place. But the creeping presence of the military who set up barricades
in parts of the capital where pro-Morsi supporters had gathered,
followed by the release of a strongly-worded statement by Morsi's
national security adviser, Essam Haddad, seemed to confirm to both camps
that the military was taking a new role in post-revolutionary Egypt.
"For the sake of Egypt and for historical accuracy, let's call what is
happening by its real name: military coup," said Haddad.
The
momentous events capped a harrowing week for Morsi and his key support
base, the Muslim Brotherhood, which had won the presidency in a
democratic election held a year ago. Morsi's support had been steadily
whittled away over the past four days, first being abandoned by the
military, then the powerful police force, and yesterday the state media.
Earlier
in the week, police failed to intervene after the headquarters of the
Muslim Brotherhood in east Cairo was besieged for 12 hours and later
burnt down. Yesterday, the interior ministry, which runs the police
force, confirmed it was backing the military.
While many on the
street saw Morsi's removal as the continuation of Egypt's 2011
revolution, the ex-president's Islamist allies viewed it as a coup, and a
betrayal of democracy. Thousands of Morsi supporters gathered in the
streets to back him, many fearing that his departure would mark a return
to the repressive treatment of Islamists under Mubarak.
Last
night, the army shut down five Islamist TV channels, while there was
factional fighting in Alexandria. State media said last night that three
people had been killed in Alexandria. Police also raided the offices of
the pan-Arab TV network al-Jazeera in Cairo.
Opponents of Egypt's Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi celebrate
outside the presidential palace in Cairo. Photograph: Hassan Ammar/AP
Sisi had spent much of of Wednesday locked in meetings with his key
generals and with senior religious and opposition figures, including the
opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, the country's leading Sunni
cleric, Sheikh Ahmed Tayeb, and the Coptic pope, Tawadros II. He did not
meet Morsi, but had spent four hours with him on Tuesday discussing a
power-sharing plan.
The opposition has long maintained that Morsi
was never interested in consensus. But in recent days, Morsi repeatedly
claimed he was willing to share power with his opponents and, after
Sisi's deadline had passed, again reiterated that he would agree to a
national unity government and parliamentary elections within months. But
Haddad, Morsi's chief aide, made clear that the president was in the
process of being ousted, and warned of its dire consequences.
"Today
only one thing matters," he wrote in a dramatic Facebook post that he
noted would probably be his last in office. "In this day and age no
military coup can succeed in the face of sizeable popular force without
considerable bloodshed. Who among you is ready to shoulder that blame?"
He added: "There are still people in Egypt who believe in their right to
make a democratic choice. Hundreds of thousands of them have gathered
in support of democracy and the presidency. And they will not leave in
the face of this attack.
"To move them, there will have to be
violence. It will either come from the army, the police, or the hired
mercenaries. Either way there will be considerable bloodshed. And the
message will resonate throughout the Muslim world loud and clear:
democracy is not for Muslims."
The gradual nature of Sisi's
actions seemed to confirm the army's desire to be seen to be answering
the will of the people, rather than enacting a unilateral coup.
Link to video: Egypt’s top general announces Morsi has been deposed
Events indicated a rehabilitation of not just the army – whose
chequered 15-month tenure in office between February 2011 and June 2012
prompted unprecedented criticism of the military – but the police, whose
reputation took a battering in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising. The
police piggybacked on the popularity of the protests, releasing two
statements backing the protests against the president.
Islamists
saw Morsi's removal as a betrayal of democracy. But for many in Tahrir
it was a victory for people power. Opposition to Morsi had floundered
until the founding of the Tamarod campaign in April. But the leaderless
Tamarod, which gathered millions of signatures calling for Morsi's
removal in recent weeks, built momentum for 30 June's street protests,
setting the stage for Morsi's departure.
On Wednesday evening
Barack Obama urged Egypt's military to hand back control to a
democratic, civilian government without delay, but stopped short of
calling Morsi's ouster a coup. In a carefully worded statement, Obama
said he was "deeply concerned" by the military's move to topple Morsi's
government and suspend Egypt's constitution. He said he was ordering the
US government to assess what the military's actions meant for US
foreign aid to Egypt $1.5bn a year in military and economic
assistance.
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