Egyptian military has 60-year record of running politics

Sarah Lynch | Special for USA TODAY

CAIRO — As King Farouk prepared to depart from his palace on Egypt's northern shores, he packed suitcases and planned to bring crates of champagne — not filled with booze but instead used to disguise an enclosed fortune of gold.

Then he and his family boarded their royal yacht, sailed across the Mediterranean Sea and never returned to Egypt.

More than 60 years after Farouk was forced out in that 1952 coup, military figures unseated another leader earlier this month when they overthrew Mohammed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president.

The military has a long history of involvement in politics and the defense minister role remains one of the most powerful positions in the country. But analysts say the military does not want to govern Egypt and appears poised to relinquish at least some of its powers as the country embarks on a turbulent transition.

"The military holds, as has been shown time and time again, the ultimate trump card, and they are the heaviest hitters in town," said Tarek Radwan, associate director for research at the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, in Washington, D.C.

"Does that mean they want to be involved in the governing process? No," he said.

After the 1952 coup led by a group of army officers, the military accounted for a sizable chunk of the cabinet and headed a number of nationalized companies. The military essentially ran the show, said Michael Wahid Hanna, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a think tank.

But power gradually shifted toward one-man rule under Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak — all of whom had backgrounds in the military.

"Within that system, the military was essentially the silent guarantor of regime stability," Hanna said.

After the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1978, the military rapidly expanded into private industry and cultivated economic interests. Today, the military continues to control a slice of the economy and owns factories and businesses that compete with the private sector.

In 2011, the military jumped out of its back seat role and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces took control, emerging as the nation's most powerful political force. The junta ruled for more than 16 months until Morsi was elected.

As president, Morsi pushed top generals into retirement and appointed a new defense minister, Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. But an Islamist-drafted constitution written during Morsi's one-year rule also formalized military privileges and protected their interests.

Analysts say the military has learned from the past. Its leaders don't want to run day-to-day affairs or put its reputation at risk. With no ambitions to overtly govern and its privileges protected, some experts say the military overthrew Morsi mainly because of threats to national security.

"Domestic instability was a part of that but so, too, was the chaotic foreign policy of Morsi," said Robert Springborg, Egyptian military expert and professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.

Morsi's policies sought to consolidate Muslim Brotherhood rule and were not based on a calculation of Egypt's interests, Springborg said.

"The national security of Egypt was being threatened," which the military couldn't risk, he said. "Then demonstrations on the 30th of June provided the clear symbol to the world that Morsi had lost legitimacy and that then enabled the military to move."

The Muslim Brotherhood denounced the military's interference as a coup and continues to demand that Morsi be reinstated.

But the opposition cheered the army, claiming that it acted on "the will of the people" — the same wording King Farouk faced when he surrendered power in the coup of 1952.

Head of the High Constitutional Court, Adly Mansour was appointed interim president last week, indicating "the military is not targeting to control the country," said Mohamed Kadry Said, a retired general and head of the security studies unit at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

The military has an important presence, he said, "but at the same time I think now, they cannot do it alone. They must be supported not only by the president but also by the people."

Meanwhile, Springborg said the military's power in the interim period will likely further diminish following the recent appointment of Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi, who is moving to fill cabinet positions.

"Knowing what Hazem El-Beblawi is like, he is not someone who will serve as a 'yes' man for the military," said Springborg, who has known Beblawi for years. "So, the military has already surrendered some power to their civilian allies."

"Will they surrender more? Presumably: yes," he added, barring a complete breakdown of order.

But as Al-Sisi currently seems to remain an éminence grise, some wonder who will be held accountable for the slew of human rights crimes that were recently committed.

More than 50 people were killed at a mass shooting on Monday, Islamist media stations were shut down and Muslim Brotherhood figures have been arrested — "putting question marks over where this country is heading," said Ziad Abdel Tawab, deputy director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.

"Accountability and end of impunity is at the heart of a democratic transformation," he said. But if no one knows if Mansour or Al-Sisi is really in charge, the country may see an endless cycle of violence and rights violations.

The military, however, is sure to make way for full civilian rule, Kadry Said said. "They know well that if Egypt is not democratic … the people will attack the military," he said.

However, Hanna said the power grab sets a troubling standard, even if the circumstances that led to it are hard to recreate.

"It's a bad precedent. There's no doubt about it," Hanna said. "It further reinforces the military's role as the ultimate arbiter of civilian politics in an emerging order that lacks institutions to arbitrate between irreconcilable, feuding parties."

As the democratic process matures, there could be a slow diminishing of the Armed Forces' political role in the decades ahead, Radwan said, but "that's assuming a stable transition from one elected government to the next."