Tanzania reacts to ouster of Egyptian president

Dar es Salaam. The government has termed  “unfortunate” Wednesday night’s ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy by the military.

Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation deputy minister Mahadhi Juma Mahadhi said developments in Egypt did not augur well for democracy on the continent.

He said the removal of President Morsy, who was promptly replaced in an interim capacity by the head of the Egyptian Supreme Court, Adly Mansour, violated the African Union’s position  that member countries’ leaderships should only be changed through democratic means.

Mr Mahadhi told The Citizen, however, that Tanzania was still monitoring the situation before making its official position public.

“A report has just been filed from our embassy in Cairo and is being looked into. What I can say for now is that what has happened in Egypt is against what the AU stands for,” he said in telephone interview.   

Meanwhile, Chadema Secretary-General Willibrod Slaa said he wished the people of Egypt well “in their struggle for change they believe in.” “People with a resolve to bring change always win,” wrote Dr Slaa on his Facebook page yesterday.

Experts at the Centre for Foreign Relations in Dar es Salaam said the crisis in the North African country had created a fluid situation both within the country, Africa and the world in general.

The centre’s director, Mr Mohammed Maundi, termed situation in Egypt as a “very complicated”.

“I see what happened in Egypt as purely the people’s revolt. It could be both a military coup and a civilian coup because the same people who put Morsy in power are exactly the same ones who have ousted him,”  he said.

Dr Maundi said the army had facilitated a process founded on on the people themselves, adding that one mistake that cost Morsy the presidency was that he forgot that his legitimacy did not end with his election but the fulfilment of the people’s wished.

 “This is something which he did not appear to do and instead, he went on to embrace his predecessor’s leadership style – dictatorship.”

The centre’s deputy director responsible for planning, finance and administration, Dr Bernard Achiula, said Morsy and his Muslim Brotherhood party had let down Egyptians and quashed expectations for a  fresh start of Egypt after the popular revolution ousted former ruler Hosni Mubarak.

“A lot of people had great expectation for a fresh start after decades long  military control. After the successful elections, many believed Egypt was headed in the right direction, but that didn’t happen,” Dr Achiula said.

He added that due to a long history of army rulers, transition to a civilian administration would have created a vacuum which unfortunately the citizens have not been patient enough to tolerate.

“The best way the international community can react to this situation is to encourage the Egyptians to hold a democratic election as soon as possible. Egypt is a very strategic country to Africa, the Arab world and the West. None of these stakeholders would afford the price if things won’t settle down in Egypt.”

The Egyptian army acted following a multi-pronged run-in with President Morsy’s administration and thousands of protesters either in support or opposition to him.  

The armed forces announced that they would install a temporary civilian government. They also suspended the Islamist-drafted constitution and called for new elections. But Morsy, who has ruled only for a year and was still being held by the army, denounced the action as a “full coup”.

Morsy was elected in June 2012 as the first democratically elected president in the country with a marginal vote of 52 per cent, leaving almost half of the voters against him, a group that some commentators believe is the one that is largely behind his fall.