CAIRO - Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, the defense minister and military officer who led last summer's takeover of the elected government in Egypt, formally announced on Wednesday that he is resigning from the army and running for president, taking a critical step in his consolidation of power.
Mr. Sisi, who held the rank of Field Marshall, is almost universally expected to win the election and thus formalize the de facto power he currently holds. He has been the government's pre-eminent decision-maker since he led the ouster of Egypt's first freely elected leader, President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, on July 3 of last year.
But by resigning from the army on Wednesday, Mr. Sisi ended his direct command of the armed forces, which until now has been the main base of his power.
The Egyptian military has a long history of stepping into civilian politics. Over the last the last 62 years, military officers have removed all four heads-of-state who did not die in office, including President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and Mr. Morsi in 2013.
Perhaps mindful of that history, Mr. Sisi has sought for the last few weeks to leave his stamp on the armed forces before resigning by presiding over a shuffling of the military's top officers. He had already handpicked his successor as defense minister, his deputy and chief of staff, General Sedki Sobhi, who was promoted on Wednesday to Colonel General by Egypt's interim president, Adly Mansour.
Among the most notable changes in the ranks, Mr. Sisi reassigned Gen. Ahmed Wasfi, a charismatic and outspoken officer who had shown signs of developing his own base of popular support. He won widespread praise for restoring security in the Suez Canal zone after riots last year and then led more recent operations in the Northern Sinai.
In a recent television interview, General Wasfi had also raised awkward questions about what it might mean if Mr. Sisi, then a general, was to be promoted or elected to a higher office.
The interim government Mr. Sisi installed at the time of the takeover has preferred to characterize that change of power as a 'second revolution' and not a 'military coup,' emphasizing a day of massive street protests calling for Mr. Morsi's resignation.
But in the interview, General Wasfi had suggested that Mr. Sisi's ascension to a higher rank or office would be a sign that the takeover had in fact been a 'coup.'
'Does General Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi have an extra star?' General Wasfi asked, arguing that the absence of any promotion proved no military coup had taken place. 'Does the defense minister, or the general, or any of us on the military council have a higher job position? Did you find out the general has become a prime minister? A president?'
Mr. Sisi 'is just as is, a defense minister,' General Wasfi continued, arguing that the takeover was not a coup because 'no military personnel have come to power.'
Mr. Sisi was promoted from General to Field Marshal a short time after the interview, presumably in preparation for his presidential run.
Analysts said it was natural that Mr. Sisi wanted to sort out the military before leaving his post. 'He apparently wanted to make sure that the military was in order, from his perspective,' said Moataz Abdel-Fattah, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo. 'He wanted to make sure that he was on top of this process.'
Mr. Sisi faces enormous challenges, including a stagnant economy, widespread labor unrest, a wave of terrorist attacks, and ongoing street protests against the takeover. On Wednesday, security forces used tear gas and birdshot to break up the latest student demonstrations that flared up at Cairo University, Al Azhar University and other campuses across the country.
By early evening, at least one student at Cairo University had been killed and more than a dozen were injured, the official media reported.
Mr. Sisi's views on policy issues are almost completely unknown to the public. He is best known for a speech he delivered shortly after last summer's takeover, wearing dark glasses and a military uniform, to call for public demonstrations to give him a 'mandate' to crack down on Mr. Morsi's supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist menace.
But he faces little opposition in the presidential race. Several would-be candidates have declined to enter, saying that the support of the military and security services all but guaranteed his victory.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that dominated the previous elections, has been decimated. Since Mr. Sisi's mandate speech, security forces have killed more than a thousand of its supporters in the streets, jailed many thousands of others, and silenced almost all of the sympathetic news media.
The only other candidate to enter the presidential race so far is Hamdeen Sabahy, a left-leaning populist who came in third place in the first round of the 2012 presidential election, with about 20 percent of the vote. But the betting is against him.
'Of course he is not up to the level to win,' said Hala Mustafa, editor of the state-run journal, Democracy. 'I don't see any other competitors' besides Mr. Sisi, she said.
No date has been set for the presidential election, or a parliamentary vote that is expected to follow. By Wednesday afternoon, Egyptian state media had reported that Mr. Sisi had cleaned out his office as defense minister. By the end of the night, Mr. Sisi presented his resignation to the council of top generals, who in turn brought it to the interim president.
Posted by Unknown on Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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