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Showing posts from November 28, 2012

A Way Out of Egypt’s Transitional Quicksand

Brussels/Cairo   |   26 Nov 2012 President Mohamed Morsi’s dramatic one-two punch – producing a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas on 22 November; issuing a constitutional declaration granting himself full powers the next day – was proof of remarkable political deftness. It also was evidence of the impasse in which Egypt’s transition has been stuck as well as of the Muslim Brotherhood’s worrying tendency to try to overcome it by ignoring rather than compromising with its detractors. Morsi had ample justification for frustration. A highly politicised judiciary has been doing all in its power to hinder the new leadership’s efforts and obstruct the expression of popular will, while the non-Islamist opposition has not shown itself the least bit constructive or conciliatory. But the president has offered the wrong answer to a real problem. He used a chainsaw where a scalpel was needed. The key lies in devising a compromise enabling the transition to move forward at a reasona

Côte d’Ivoire: Defusing Tensions

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS The volatile security situation and political tensions are threatening Côte d’Ivoire’s recovery. The last few months have seen a series of deadly attacks against a police station, one of the main military bases of the country, several army positions and a power station. Violence also broke out in the west. Although these incidents do not pose a direct threat to stability, they show that, for some segments of the population, the war is not yet over. Some signs are particularly worrying: slow security sector reform, stalled political dialogue, a weak ruling coalition, a return to violent discourses, uncovered coup plots, and an apparent lack of political will to promote national reconciliation. President Alassane Ouattara and his new government should not rely solely on economic recovery and the tightening of security measures to consolidate peace. International attention should remain focused on Côte d’Ivoire’s stabilisation, which is all the m