So too will violence.īoth sides say they take heart from Sisi’s promise to defend the “will of the people”. So whether the generals step in, with their half million men, U.S.-funded hardware and a 60-year-old sense of entitlement, now depends on how the next few days play out at flashpoints like Tahrir Square and Mursi’s palace in Cairo and on the streets of a dozen other major cities across the country. A vague offer from Mursi of collaboration was met with disdain from the opposition. The “consensus” Sisi urged politicians to reach this week is absent. The warning at the start of the week from General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was presented as a wake-up call to the rival factions, President Mohamed Mursi and his Islamist allies on one side, a disparate coalition of liberals and a mass of Egyptians simply frustrated by economic stagnation on the other.īut the velvet glove of Sisi’s language, urging politicians to find consensus and avert bloodshed, could not conceal an iron-fist of possible intervention, even if he was widely believed when he said the generals, secure and prosperous in their new role, have no wish to go back to running the country. Protesters chant anti-Mursi and anti-Muslim Brotherhood slogans in Tahrir square as they listen to President Mohamed Mursi's public address, in Cairo June 26, 2013.
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