Egyptians believed they were to have a new, popularly-elected government. Instead they have been handed a military junta.

There can be no other interpretation now that the Egyptian military, at a time when it was supposed to hand over power to the country’s first democratically elected president, has seized extensive powers by decree.

In Egypt, the move is being called a military coup. In effect, the military has not taken on new powers. It has provocatively upheld the powers that it has held for six decades, ignoring the will of a populace that forced its dictator Hosni Mubarak from power last January.

Similarly, the military has demonstrated that it is not by chance that its uniformed cohorts avoided responsibility for the deaths last year of at least 850 democracy activists.

The new president – probably the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi – will only be able to act at the mercy of the military junta.

The military has dissolved Parliament and will decide itself when new elections are to be held. It has seized legislative powers, as well as giving itself a deciding interest in the development of a new constitution.

The military has taken on police powers to arrest civilians and it has made sure to dash any presidential notion of submitting the military – either its command or budgets – to presidential or Parliamentary control.

Anything missing here? Ah yes. The military has also secured full budgetary control and established a new security council whose military members can veto the president.

Egyptians have simply been betrayed by their own military, which until the revolution, and unlike the police, enjoyed broad public sympathy and extensive public endorsement.

As such, the Arab world’s most populous state has become a frightening example to other Arab societies hoping for democracy. The lesson to be learned now is that last year, Hosni Mubarak became a victim of his own military colleagues in order for them to win time.

The military has shamed the trust of the people and shamed itself. The junta in Cairo has betrayed the trust and dreams of the people, and their revolution.

That is not something that a junta can get away with in the long run.

aj

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