Sudden Improvements in Egypt Suggest a Campaign to Undermine Morsi

[cali]

The streets seethe with protests and government ministers are on the run or in jail, but since the military ousted President Mohamed Morsi, life has somehow gotten better for many people across Egypt: Gas lines have disappeared, power cuts have stopped and the police have returned to the street.

The apparently miraculous end to the crippling energy shortages, and the re-emergence of the police, seems to show that the legions of personnel left in place after former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in 2011 played a significant role — intentionally or not — in undermining the overall quality of life under the Islamist administration of Mr. Morsi.

And as the interim government struggles to unite a divided nation, the Muslim Brotherhood and Mr. Morsi’s supporters say the sudden turnaround proves that their opponents conspired to make Mr. Morsi fail. Not only did police officers seem to disappear, but the state agencies responsible for providing electricity and ensuring gas supplies failed so fundamentally that gas lines and rolling blackouts fed widespread anger and frustration.

“This was preparing for the coup,” said Naser el-Farash, who served as the spokesman for the Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade under Mr. Morsi. “Different circles in the state, from the storage facilities to the cars that transport petrol products to the gas stations, all participated in creating the crisis.”

<snip>

Despite coming to power through the freest elections in Egyptian history, Mr. Morsi was unable to extend his authority over the sprawling state apparatus, and his allies complained that what they called the “deep state” was undermining their efforts at governing.


<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/world/middleeast/improvements-in-egypt-suggest-a-campaign-that-undermined-morsi.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[msongs]

1. evidently Mr Morsi and company were too weak to counter the opposition. nt

[KansDem]

2. Kick...

...and Rec.

[geek tragedy]

3. Morsi thought that winning one election meant he was pharoah

and that the apparatus of the previous secular regime would all of a sudden help turn Egypt into Iran part 2.

Oops. He should have made just a tiny bit of effort to win over the entire country instead of shoving his boot down their throats while pandering to his radical Islamist base.

[cali]

4. vapid. what actual evidence do you have to contradict the information in the article?

Or, for that matter, what evidence do you have that he thought "he was pharoh?

The article contradicts your claim:

He should have made just a tiny bit of effort to win over the entire country instead of shoving his boot down their throats while pandering to his radical Islamist base.


And I do think he pandered to his Muslim Brotherhood base, but there's more and more evidence that he was crippled in "reaching out" by forces within the sprawling government.

[geek tragedy]

5. The point is that he had to win over the state apparatus. He had to get their buy-in, convince

the people who had been part of the Mubarak government for almost an entire lifetime that he was going to provide stability and a government for all Egyptians.

Instead, he assumed that with one election they'd fall in line and support him to the hilt.

If you were a secular Egyptian working in the government, and Morsi was talking like he was a caliph instead of a President, what would you do?

[malaise]

6. The Morsi government was sabotaged

with outside money

[bhikkhu]

7. As a dedicated secularist, this is still good news

If we had a religious fundamentalist win office here, I only hope that something so effective could be organized to bring back order and equity. I hope the rejection of Morsi becomes an inflection point in Egyptian history.