CFR Update 1/28 Egypt Violence Continues Despite State of Emergency

Daily News Brief January 28, 2013

Top of the Agenda: Egypt Violence Continues Despite State of Emergency

Street violence continued for a fifth consecutive day across Egypt despite President Mohammed Morsi's Sunday declaration of a month-long state of emergency (al-Jazeera)

in three provinces hit by rioting that has left almost fifty people dead. Protests marking the second anniversary of the Egyptian revolution began last week, and a death sentence for several Port Said residents on charges related to deadly rioting at a soccer match last year sparked more violent demonstrations. In reaction, the cabinet approved a draft law that would allow Morsi to deploy the army to the streets, and the president on Monday called for a national dialogue (Reuters) with rivals, although early response from the main opposition coalition suggested they saw little point in the gesture.

Analysis

"Since President Morsi took office last June, his critics complain that he has failed to hold former officials accountable for their alleged crimes and carry out much-needed reforms, particularly to the interior ministry. He has failed to fill a security vacuum

, making his task of dealing with a growing economic crisis much harder," write Yolande Knell and Jeannie Assad for the BBC.

"Where did Egypt get it wrong, what did it miss in transition

? The answer may lie in a single word that has figured prominently in the Tunisian political discourse – 'consensus,'" writes Mike Hanna for al-Jazeera.

"What we have now is the same old equation, only with a change in its components. Those who ruled are now in prison or in the opposition while the factions of political Islam

, which constituted the main opposition bloc in the past 60 years under the leadership of its biggest group, are now in power and maintaining the tactics of the old regime," writes Abdel Latif al-Menawy for al-Arabiya.