In a news conference last month, a spokesman for the nation’s police association said the police would not provide protection “for any party or political headquarters,” in a clear message to the Brotherhood. In some areas of Cairo on Sunday, uniformed officers joined the protesters. “I reject Morsi. I want him to leave,” said Hussein Ahmed Ibrahim, a police major, who stood on a corner with other officers near the palace, waving a red card that read “Leave” toward the supportive passersby who honked their car horns. “I’ll protect the protesters, but I won’t protect the palace,” he said. “We’re all like this,” he added of the police. “And the army has the same position.” Egypt’s military has deployed in limited areas across the country to protect government infrastructure, including the central bank and the nation’s biggest moneymaker, the Suez Canal. But soldiers were nowhere to be seen in the vicinity of Sunday’s protests, despite calls from the opposition for the military to intervene to force Morsi out. A cacophony of cheers and air horns erupted from the anti- government protests in Tahrir Square and near the palace Sunday, as military helicopters periodically flew overhead. “It’s a message of friendship from the army,” said Ragai Hussein, a government bureaucrat, who was rallying against Morsi from atop one of the palace’s outer walls. “Come down, Sissi; Morsi is not our president,” others chanted, referring to the head of Egypt’s armed forces, Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. But if the military did anything Sunday, it was probably breathe a sigh of relief, said El-Shimy. The military has signaled that it does not want to return to the helm of politics, which it commanded — turbulently — in the first year and a half after Mubarak stepped down. But Sissi also said earlier this month that the army would step in if Egypt’s political crisis worsened. “Depending on what happens over the next few days and potentially weeks, if the opposition is able to sustain the momentum, the military might be compelled to intervene by basically asking both sides to compromise,” El-Shimy said. “But if the protests start fading away, I doubt that the military will play a big role.”
Posted on: Mon, 01 Jul 2013 05:55:09 +0000