Egyptians not pleased with Morsi anymore

An interview with Shehab Wagih, the spokesperson for the Free Egyptians Party and a member of the National Salvation Front in Cairo, about the current political situation in Egypt.
Question: What didn’t president Morsi deliver in his yesterday speech?

Wagih: Actually, he did not deliver anything at all. Actually, he was supposed to come and to say to us how to solve these problems and all he did was just giving us explanations which is very far from the real.

He was speaking about those remnants of the old regime who are playing against the country; he was speaking about this conspiracy between the opposition and the old regime.

We do not accept this; this is not acceptable. In Egypt, we are supposed to have a democratic country. A democratic country must be ruled by law; this is what we believe in.

If he sees that there are some people who are against the law, he must put them to the court. He is not supposed to come on in a statement and begin to say those people are having conspiracies against our country. This is not the way. The way is to go to the court and if there is anyone who is doing anything which is against the law must be accounted for this.

But the fact is that Dr. Morsi’s failure in all the fields is what Egypt is suffering from now. It is not a conspiracy. It is just a simple failure. This is what we are suffering from now in Cairo.

The idea of the violence and that the revolution will have violence, this is not true; we have demonstrations in Cairo and we know exactly who is responsible for the violence. Our opposition is a pure, civil and peaceful opposition. We all know the history of … Party, the Al-Dostour Party and all of the civil parties in Egypt.

We have never been to violence. In our history, which is eight years of civil opposition, we had never used violence. There are only two political fractions which used violence in the Egyptian history and both of them are not civil oppositions.

I do not want to say who used the violence before but in general, we do not believe in violence; we are not planning to have any violence. We are coming to the streets to say that Dr. Morsi, your legitimacy came from a constitution which came by an illegal way, by just putting the constitutional court under siege.

This is the source of your legitimacy. Your performance is very annoying for all the Egyptians; we have economic problems; we have security problems and we have different problems.

Q: Our guest there said that President Morsi was elected by over 50 percent and he is defending Morsi’s performance in a matter of speaking. What is your response?

Wagih: I want to say some small points about being the first elected president. Actually, Dr. Morsi was truly the first elected president, but we have many questions. How was he elected? He was elected by 52 percent, knowing that he gave promises to a very big part of the opposition which represent a big percentage of those who elected him.

He made some very famous promises, saying that he will reform the constitutional assembly in order to be accepted by everyone. He gave us many promises which he did not fulfill.

According to not fulfilling his promises, people began to sign an application, a paper by which people who are much more than those who elected Dr. Morsi are saying that we are not approving him as our president. He was elected by 13 million votes; now we have more than 17 million votes signing on a petition, saying that Dr. Morsi is not representing me anymore.

Q: I know you had some reactions to what our guest Shaker Rizk had to say. Go ahead with your reaction, please.

Wagih: Well, first of all, my colleague accused me of being blind. Yes, I have to tell him I was blind; sure, I was blind. Me and many of the Egyptian opposition leaders were blind.

You know why? Because we elected and we supported Dr. Morsi; Hamdi Qandil supported Dr. Mosi; Alaa Al-Aswani supported Dr. Morsi; even Duma who is in the prison now supported Dr. Morsi. We were blind because we supported him. Unfortunately, we supported him.

Now he is talking to me about the constitutional way of opposing Dr. Morsi. Which constitution? Which constitution are you talking about? The constitution which was passed because they put the constitutional court under siege? Is this the way to put a constitution by putting the constitutional court under siege? It was an illegal action.

Actually, this is an action which we have to talk about so much. You put the constitutional court under siege to pass the constitution. And then the Tagarrod Movement, this very famous movement. Actually no one in the Egyptian streets had ever seen this Tagarrod application.

If you walk in any street in Cairo, you will see the Tamarrod application. Some independent youths are standing and asking you to sign on the Tamarrod application, but we had never seen this Tagarrod application. The Tamarrod application is very well known for their last demonstration or their last rally.

We know exactly the numbers thanks to Google. The real number who were in the demonstration was not more than 300 thousand; this is the number they were able to gather and if you want to compare, the next Sunday will be our comparison. Please, wait for the next Sunday and you will know exactly what is the number of those who are opposing Dr. Morsi.

Dr. Morsi was not an enemy from the beginning. The president was not an enemy from the beginning.

Q: Our guest talked about Dr. Morsi and Egypt’s relationship with the US. We know the army is still getting their aid. What do you have to say in reaction to what Shaker Rizk said?

Wagih: Actually, I will not say anything. Dr. Morsi already said yesterday. Dr. Morsi, during his speech, said that he is doing his best to maintain the good relation and the alliance with the United States. This is what Dr. Morsi said yesterday.

So these are not my words; these are Dr. Morsi’s words. And let’s go more than this. OK, maybe Dr. Morsi is trying to keep the relation between a country with another country; it is politics. But actually I can tell you more. I can tell you that the American ambassador in Egypt, Mrs. Ann Patterson, is defending the [Muslim] Brotherhood as if it has never defended even Mubarak regime.

When she is talking with the opposition at any time, she is telling the opposition that he is a democratic president and you have to accept him; you have to talk with each other and then go and talk with him; I can go between you and I can make things go better.

I can see clearly that the American ambassador in Egypt is just giving nothing but support to the Brotherhood. It is not just a country-country thing. It is something between the United States and the Brotherhood. I am telling you they are defending him; it is not just dictating. No, I can see she is dictating. I can see that there were some cases in which it was not logical that things go this way and then went in a different way.