Today Egypt has mainly been coping with the funerals of those killed in the confrontation outside Cairo's Republican Guard HQ.
In slightly worrying news the Muslim Brotherhood have overnight rejected the timetable for fresh elections presented by interim President Mansour on Monday (8/7/13) as an illegitimate declaration of the illegitimate President of the "Putchists." Old Soviet words aside I think this really sums up the Brotherhood's attitude towards democracy - They're only in favour of it as long as they're winning.
In slightly better news for the nation both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have made pledges of financial support. The UAE have pledged a total USD3bn made up a USD1bn grant to the central bank followed by a possible USD2bn interest free loan to the central bank both of which will allow Egypt to support its own currency - the Egyptian Pound. Saudi Arabia has been more generous pledging a total of USD5bn million made of USD1bn in cash dollars which allows Egypt to trade on the international market. They have also offered USD2billion to the central bank and USD2billion is "energy products" which essentially means gasoline.
Although both offers come with strings attached they will be a relief to Egypt's interim military rulers. That is because of despite Article 121 of his own constitution Mohamed Morsi managed to run up around USD20bn of debt in his one year in office. This has left Egypt with approximately 3 months (October 2013) of foreign currency (US Dollars) reserves. Although running out of foreign currency will not in any way affect Egypt's ability to pay salaries it will prevent it importing foreign goods such as gasoline raising the prospect of Zimbabwe style run-away inflation.
The main political development of the day is that President Mansour has dropped the idea of appointing the Social Democrat Party (SDP) leader Ziad Bahaa el-Din as interim Prime Minister with Mohammed ElBaradei acting as his deputy. Instead he today announced Hazem el-Beblawi as the interim Prime Minister with Mohammed ElBaradei acting as his deputy. Again I feel that el-Beblawi is a strong candidate for interim Prime Minister because his background in law certainly gives him an understanding of the ethical and technical issues required to build a democratic society. His PHD in economics certainly qualifies him to tackle Egypt's pressing economic problems. Therefore if this was a US Presidential election I would say el-Beblawi and ElBaradei most certainly make up a winning ticket.
One of el-Beblawi's first acts as nominee was to offer seats in the government of national unity to the Muslim Brotherhood in a clear effort to garner their support for his nomination. So far the Brotherhood have yet to respond but I am opposed to this sort of offer because to my mind it goes against the principle of an inclusive government of national unity and looks set to plunge Egypt into further trouble.
In the meantime the Salafist al-Nour Party have announced that they support el-Beblawi's nomination but remain unconvinced by ElBaradei's nomination. As al-Nour have already withdrawn from the government of national unity I'm a little confused as to why their opinion has been sort at all.
A possible explanation may be a mortar attack on a police (CSF) base in the Sinai this evening. Although Sinai is most certainly bandit country where anything can happen I feel this was a Salafist attack intended to curry favour amongst Egypt's population by reminding them of all the help the Islamists have given to the Palestinians. While I cannot speak for the people of Gaza I think this is a complete lie because through things like Operation Pillars of Cloud since Morsi took over I've only seen things get worse and worse in a now nearly bankrupt Palestine.
23:45 on 9/7/13.
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