Mubarak toppled

Mubarak toppled

by The Economist online | CAIRO

THE statement was short for a change, and in another change for the people of Egypt, its message was sweet. After nearly three decades of rule and 18 days of nerve-wracking tumult, Hosni Mubarak had resigned as their president, formally handing power to the army’s supreme command. In Cairo’s Tahrir Square, where hundreds of thousands had gathered for yet another day of enraged protest, the brief announcement on state television sparked a roar of joy audible for miles across the city, and a wave of pride and jubilation like victory in a hundred World Cup finals won by a whole nation’s toil and tears.

The full implications of what amounts effectively to a military coup in the most populous and pivotal Arab state are not yet clear. Egyptians do not yet know which soldiers will sit on the new ruling council, or what their plan of action is. But one of the ironies of this revolution is that for the leaderless, many-stranded protest movement, which united solely in wishing to rid their country of Mr Mubarak and in the aim of forging a real democracy, a period of military rule appears in many ways the best possible outcome.

Since the unrest began on January 25th, with nationwide protest marches organised by Facebook activists, Mr Mubarak’s regime had struggled to parry the growing movement by offering concessions. Considering the tightly restricted political sphere under the 82-year-old president’s rule, many of these had been far-reaching. Indeed, had some, or perhaps any one of them been offered before the growing cycle of protests began, a revolution might have been aborted. But all these offers proved too little, too late.

Mr Mubarak and his aging inner circle, including his short-tenured vice-president, the ex-intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, repeatedly declared that they had heard the protesters’ message. They claimed to accept the need for change, but were determined to act within the boundaries of Egypt’s constitution. Again and again throughout the crisis, Mr Mubarak declared his determination to serve out the remaining seven months of his term.

This punctiliousness might have been understandable, and indeed many Egyptians accepted that an orderly transition might require a rulebook. The trouble was that the constitution, drafted in 1971, was tailored to sustain precisely the kind of veiled dictatorship that Mr Mubarak’s opponents sought to abolish. The core of protesters did not want to tinker with a few articles. They demanded an overhaul, leading to a completely new style of government.

In Mr Mubarak’s very last attempt to maintain a semblance of dignified control, just the night before, he had assigned many of his powers to Mr Suleiman. The military, emerging openly on to the political scene for the first time, had issued a declaration, ominously described as Communiqué Number Two, undertaking to guarantee a democratic transition, according to the slow constitutional plan framed by Mr Mubarak. This puzzled Egyptians, rousing fears that the army, which had previously maintained a studied neutrality, had opted to side with the beleaguered political leadership. In retrospect it seems that army commanders, many of them personally loyal to Mr Mubarak, were giving their commander-in-chief a last chance.

But to Mr Mubarak’s chagrin the vast crowds of detractors gathered in Egypt’s streets proved implacable. They would be satisfied with nothing short of the president’s permanent, irreversible departure. Not only did Tahrir Square and others across Egypt again fill with even bigger angry crowds. Tens of thousands of ordinary Egyptians marched to surround Mr Mubarak’s palace, and more still to engulf the state broadcasting headquarters.

One can imagine the scene in which Mr Mubarak’s generals, gesturing to television screens showing undiminished hordes of citizens baying for the president’s departure, convinced him that the game was up. Out of sight of cameras, the president and his wife flew discreetly to his favorite beach house, in the resort of Sharm el Sheikh. It is believed that as part of the army’s agreement with the fallen president, he is likely to be shielded in retirement from prosecution, and die on Egyptian soil.

Egypt’s military rulers are expected soon to issue more communiqués, outlining transitional steps to a permanent new order. For the time being, the head of the new command is likely to be the acting minister of defence, Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi. But Mr Tantawi, now 78 years old, is believed to be ailing and soon to retire. The figure many expect to emerge to prominence is the army’s chief of staff, Sami Anan, a professional soldier who is widely respected in the army. Reassuringly for Egypt’s Western allies, Mr Anan has cordial relations with the American military, the result of a close relationship built on three decades of generous American military aid.

The last time Egypt’s army took over, in 1952, it abolished pluralist democracy and installed the strongman system that Mr Mubarak inherited. But Egypt’s people, immensely bolstered by the success of their revolution, with its stunning exercise of peaceful power by great masses of citizens, appear broadly confident that this experience will not be repeated. What they expect, and appear determined to fight for, is a proper democracy.

From our current print edition: Fighting gives way to talking, but the mood of protest cannot be reversed