Outright military takeover
General Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt’s defence minister, demands that President Mohamed Morsi resign. Morsi refuses, insisting he enjoys full democratic legitimacy. Troops surround the presidential palace and Muslim Brotherhood premises and place Morsi under house arrest with other senior Brotherhood leaders.
Morsi supporters, formed into militias, take to take to streets to protest against what they would call a “counter-revolutionary” army coup.
Egyptian media have already quoted military sources speaking of the possibility of large-scale bloodshed and “signs of state disintegration.”
Parallels have been drawn with Algeria in the early 1990s before it descended into fully-fledged civil war. But the army, stung by the unhappy experience of its 16-month rule after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak, is likely to be reluctant to assume direct power. It prefers to stay in the shadows and mediate.
Silent coup
Morsi agrees under army pressure to call new presidential elections. Some Islamist figures have mooted dates ranging from October to January — provided they come second to new parliamentary elections that the Brotherhood leadership hopes would give them a majority sufficient to compose the next government. (The current lower house of parliament is suspended).
But that is likely to be far too leisurely for Morsi’s critics. Another variant is the idea of holding a referendum on whether to told a new presidential race. The ultra-conservative Salafi Noor party (flanking the Brotherhood from the right and protesting that it is not doing enough to promote Sharia
law) supports this.The mass protest movement Tamarod (Rebellion) says Morsi must go and wants early presidential elections with the head of the supreme constitutional court serving as acting president in the interim. Opposition forces say they don’t trust any vote held under the rule of the Brotherhood.
Negotiations and stalemate
Morsi, taking heed of the army’s 48-hour warning about its own “road map,” invites leaders of opposition forces to join a power-sharing unity cabinet to promote national reconciliation and review the constitution that was passed last year. Success is not guaranteed.
Simply shuffling the cabinet and appointing a new prime minister is unlikely to assuage public anger at the president. National Salvation Front leaders Amr Moussa (a presidential candidate last year) and Nobel laureate Mohammed ElBaradei might well want to run for power with military backing or acquiescence.
The former air force general Ahmed Shafiq, now exiled in the UAE and seen as the candidate par excellence of the Mubarak era counter- revolutionaries, may harbour ambitions too after being narrowly beaten by Morsi last summer.
Deadlock and protests certain to continue.