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Muslim Brotherhood Weekly Message:Reasons for Coup in Egypt

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt says seven main reasons were behind the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, asserting that the junta went far beyond the demands of June 30 demonstrations, and failed to meet the early presidential election demand.

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On July 3, 2013 General Al-Sisi, Egypt’s Minister of Defense, and a number of army generals executed a military coup against the legitimate regime chosen by the people through fair elections for the first time in the country’s history. General Al-Sisi abducted the elected civilian President and kept him (to-date) completely incommunicado in an unknown location. He also suspended the Constitution approved by 64% of the people in a most credible referendum. He further disbanded the elected Shura Council (Upper House of Egypt’s Parliament), and appointed an interim president of the republic, superficially granting him both executive and legislative powers. He proceeded to declare a ‘map of the future’ reflecting his own will. He then issued a constitutional declaration by way of a substitute for the Constitution the people chose for themselves.

According to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Wednesday message, the group identified seven causes behind the July 3 coup d’etat as:

1. Power Grab: General Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, the putschist regime’s defense minister, aspires to the position of president of Egypt.

2. Social Status: The army wants to safeguard its own special status high on the social ladder.

3. Economic Empire: The military must maintain the advantages and economic gains it has accumulated over 60 years.

4. Secret Budgets: The military wishes to maintain the confidentiality of its budget.

5. Fear of War: The military feared President Morsi would involve the army in war adventures they – wrongly – imagined he would undertake.

6. Western Influence: The putschists’ ideologies and interests coincide with the West’s.

7. Gulf Support: Arab states fearful of democracy and the true Islamic model aided and abetted the military coup in Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood revealed that obstacles began to be placed in the way of President Morsi a few days before he even took office:

"Days before Morsi was elected to the Presidency, the Lower House of Parliament was dissolved, so the military council grabbed back the power of legislation, making sure it remained on the political scene and in the heart of events.

"Then, more problems were placed in the path of the new President. Less than two months after Dr. Morsi became President, a number of our soldiers were killed in North Sinai. As he set out to attend the funeral of the murdered soldiers, he received reports of a plot to attack him. He then sacked a number of senior army and police generals, including Field Marshal Tantawi and Lieutenant-General Sami Annan."

The Brotherhood said that the plot to remove President Mohamed Morsi began when Field Marshal Tantawi was in charge: "One of President Morsi’s opponents said that a senior official at the U.S. embassy told him that if they were able to gather one hundred thousand demonstrators in front of Itehadia Presidential Palace for three days, the Americans would recognize and support them. Morsi’s opponent added that Field Marshal Tantawi also said to him: 'You start, and we will move to support you', which is the same scenario Al-Sisi followed on June 30 and July 3, 2013. This means that military commanders were determined from the outset not to accept a civilian as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces (the President).

"Right from the beginning, the generals’ plot started to incite public opinion against the civilian President through a relentless hostile media campaign, attempts to frustrate all his endeavors, refusal by state institutions to do their duties, and dubious deals between military commanders and a number of politicians who had failed in every election, until it reached its peak on June 30, 2013 and the generals executed their coup on July 3, 2013."

The Brotherhood rejected as false claims by the military putschists that the President planned for war adventures. According to statements attributed to Al-Sisi in The Washington Post newspaper, he said that President Morsi was out to restore the Islamic empire. The Brotherhood’s message refuted that claim, affirming that: "President Mohamed Morsi is a very wise and reasonable leader who believes in and adopts peaceful, gradual approaches, and he also believes in peoples' freedom and sovereignty. Therefore, he would never be involved in military adventures of the kind the generals suggested. This point was used by the coup to incite the army against the President, and to persuade the West to accept the military coup".

The Brotherhood’s message further affirmed that leftist, liberal and secular forces that hate Islamists in Egypt are in agreement with the interests of the West, which "was eager to quickly oust President Morsi because he adopted a liberating, independent approach and dealt with everyone as equals and with national dignity, because he wanted to expand and extend Egypt's international relations with all countries of the world, because he refused subordination and subservience to the West, and also because he rejected normalization with the Zionists – nay, he rejected even to warm up relations with them".