The Muslim Brotherhood claims that Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, led a military coup against the legitimate president under the pretext that he was responding to the wishes of the masses, whereas he was really seeking the presidency, according to an announcement late Tuesday evening.
The Brotherhood argues that the mass of protesters on 30 June were not demanding more than early presidential elections.
The Brotherhood’s message also said that Sisi has wanted to restore the special status that army officers have been enjoying since the 1952 revolution, and that he believes the president should be of a military background as has been the case under the past authoritarian regimes.
The group also said that the army leaders were against a civilian leading as their supreme commander, which is why they, together with certain politicians who had failed in all elections, used the media to incite public opinion against the ousted Muslim Brotherhood president.
It went on to say that parliament was dissolved a few days before the president was elected so as to keep legislative powers within the military council.
It claimed further that the military placed obstacles for the president, such as the incident of the soldiers killed in northern Sinai less than two months after he came to power, and that the president wanted to attend the funeral of the soldiers but did not when he heard there was a plot to attack him, which is why he dismissed a number of senior military leaders, including Tantawi and Annan.
The army wanted to keep the advantages and economic gains that the new equitable regime would have taken away, the group said, contending that the army’s commercial projects account for 40 percent of the Egyptian economy.
Another reason for the coup, according to the group, was that the army wanted to keep its budget confidential, especially that certain voices emerged after the 25 January revolution demanding the budget should be discussed publicly to avoid suspicion of corruption.
Moreover, the group said the army believed Morsy would implicate it in wars to arrive at his goal of an Islamic Empire, whereas Morsy was wise enough to know that such goal could only be attained gradually through cooperation with the Arab countries then with the non-Arab Islamic countries. That is why the army incited the West to accept the coup, the group claimed, as it is a secular establishment.
It also said that the Constitutional Committee of 50 is largely comprised of secularists, leftists and liberals that are against the Islamic project, and that are in agreement with the West.
The West was against Morsy, they claim, because he was independent and refused subordination and normalization with the Zionists, as the group put it. He was also seeking to achieve self-sufficiency in food, medicine and armament.
Lastly, the group claimed the Arab states supported the coup because they were fearful of the Islamic model of a right democracy, which is why their intelligence services helped overthrow Morsy and paid billions of dollars for that purpose.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
