PolicyMic: Mohamed Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood Face Challenge From Egyptian Military

By Stephen Kalin

Soon after the Egyptian election commission’s unendurably long press conference on the results of the country's presidential election, the White House released a statement congratulating President-elect Mohamed Morsi. Similar announcements poured in from around the world, cementing the Muslim Brotherhood’s victory with the seal of international recognition. Notably absent from the cacophony was the Israeli government.

Morsi is posed to become the first Islamist head of an Arab state and Egypt’s first non-military president. His victory is a mixed bag for many Egyptians as well as many foreign countries. The victory of a former Mubarak-era political prisoner is Obama-esque in its symbolism, but less rosy are the implications of an Egypt governed by the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been compared to Mubarak’s former National Democratic Party for its strict hierarchical structure and refusal to accept criticism. more

Business Today: Daily Deals Hit Egypt: One of the biggest internet commerce trends reaches Egypt

By Stephen Kalin

It took nearly 24 hours after deadly football clashes in a Port Said stadium in February before thousands of mourning Egyptians amassed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to protest police negligence. But Abdellatif Olama, CEO of a new internet-based consumer discount website, was able to observe the public’s negative reaction in real time. “On that day,” he says, “we were having record sales until the moment when it happened, and then the day ended sales with the same number that it had at 6 pm.”

At the helm of Dare’n’Deal, one of the four major daily deal websites in Egypt, Olama can track consumer spending habits closely. Egypt has witnessed healthy growth in this industry for several years, and the so-called ‘Facebook revolution’ in 2011 led to a more than 30% increase in the number of internet users, according to the Ministry for Communications and Information Technology. E-commerce companies wisely regard these new users as a huge growth potential.

Daily deal, or group buying, sites are currently one of the hottest segments in the industry. They were pioneered and popularized by Chicago-based Groupon, which was valued at $12.7 billion (LE 76.69 billion) when it went public last November, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The model is simple: These websites offer customers vouchers for highly discounted services from local merchants. The offer is advertised for a limited period and once a minimum number of consumers express interest in the deal, it becomes active and available to all. Consumers enjoy steep discounts, retailers get new customers and risk-free advertising, and the website takes a hefty commission.

Since its founding in late 2008, Groupon has reaped tremendous profits and expanded rapidly to cities across the US and around the world. Simultaneously, it has witnessed a plethora of copycat sites, chief among them being LivingSocial, which calls into question the sustainability of a business model that seemingly lacks any meaningful barriers to entry.

Fearing economic instability as a result of the Arab spring, Groupon’s global expansion has largely skipped over the Middle East. However, Living Social arrived in Egypt in mid-2011 on the heels of a several regional and domestic Groupon duplicates. more

PolicyMic: Egypt Presidential Election Results Delayed: Is the Army Complicit to Blame?

By Stephen Kalin

CAIRO – The announcement of the final results of last weekend’s presidential runoff elections between Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi and former Mubarak prime minister Ahmed Shafiq have been delayed, according to Reuters. The election committee was supposed to declare a winner on Thursday, but now claims that it needs more time to consider appeals from the candidates.

In polarized post-revolutionary Egypt, the announcement of either candidate as the winner has the potential to stir unrest and possibly violence. Anxieties about the return of the Mubarak regime’s brutal repression are just as strong here as worries of the implementation of an Islamic state. While it’s far from clear that the election of either Shafiq or Morsi would lead to these respective scenarios, speculation and fear about them characterize much of the popular discourse. more

PolicyMic: Hosni Mubarak Dead or Alive? The Saga Continues in Egypt

By Stephen Kalin


CAIRO – For the second time in less than a week, rumors are circulating tonight that former president Hosni Mubarak has died in the south Cairo prison where he is serving a life sentence for killing protesters during last year’s January 25 uprising.


Within one hour, Reuters reported that Mubarak’s doctors declared him clinically dead and then that security sources denied that claim and indicated that he was merely unconscious and connected to a respirator. (One might wonder if that’s so much different than the ill 84 year-old’s health condition for the past several years.) more

Post-Mubarak sentencing Tahrir sit-in (photos and videos)

Crowds on Saturday afternoon, hours after the Mubarak trail sentencing was announced:

Protests continue the following day with a symbolic graveyard for future martyrs:

Abu Time: "Excuse me. There are no seats in revolutionary Egypt for those who wants to sit in the shelter of a corrupt regime. Political rights should be denied for life to those who worked in the presidency, any minister's office, the National Party, the Parliament, a political office or committee since the beginning of the previous presidency. We will not accept patching up."

A march on Sunday coming to Mohamed Mahmoud Street, the sight of deadly street battles in November and February, memorialized on the right hand side wall:

Sunday night, cotton candy vendor in the center.

The three banners in Tahrir (no stage this time until the end of the week): 1) Remove the public prosecutor immediately.

2) Implement the political isolation law and stop the elections:

3) Revolutionary trials for the Mubarak regime and the killing of the martyrs.

Tuesday afternoon, the supporters of God arrived. What took them so long?!

The last statement of the military council: Don't dream of a happy life because behind every Caesar who dies...is a new Caesar. And behind every martyr who dies is meaningless sadness and useless tears. (I love the frowning child.)

"Tantawi and Mubarak are one hand" - the picture is based on that which appeared a few months ago on the army's tanks of a soldier precariously carrying a baby and proclaiming the people and the army are one hand. As someone once remarked of the original picture: if the army is the soldier, then the baby is the people.

One of the many vendors in Tahrir, this guy selling SpongeBob SquarePants t-shirts:

"Boycotting (the elections) is treason to the martyrs' blood" - heated discussions ensued as several men with these signs entered the square from Qasr el Nil bridge.

Panorama video from the center of the square:

At the Mohamed Mahmoud entrance to the square, the soccer hooligan Ultras had gathered to protest the sentencing, Shafiq's inclusion in the elections, and the 74 people killed at the Port Said football massacre in February.

Part 2 of the Ultras cheer...sheer electricity!

Nonviolent, Leaderless and Unsuccessful: The False Promise of Egypt's Tahrir Square

CAIRO – Since its beginning, Egypt’s January 25 revolution has been hailed as a model of nonviolent resistance to oppression and also as a portrait of popular, leaderless action. But the most recent Tahrir sit-in, which began last Saturday in response to the sentencing of Mubarak and his top aides, highlights that this tactic is no longer successful — if it ever was at all. more

PolicyMic: Mubarak Arab Spring Trial Result Sparks New Wave of Protests in Egypt's Tahrir Square

CAIRO – Tahrir Square closed to traffic Saturday, as protesters trickled in during the hottest part of the day. By nightfall, numbers swelled to the tens of thousands chanting for the fall of military rule and the cleansing of the judiciary. Groups of disgruntled citizens gathered spontaneously here and in squares across the country in response to the sentencing of deposed President Hosni Mubarak, his sons and his closest associates. more

Leaving the sixth floor

Today I left my sixth floor flat in downtown Cairo which I have called home for the last 11 months. A year ago to this day, I was packing up my room in Vienna and celebrating with a party in my flat there as I prepared to make my move back to Egypt. This time, I’m moving just across the Nile to a friend’s apartment in Dokki, where I’ll stay for three weeks before a summer holiday in the States. I’ll be back in Cairo at the end of August to continue writing and studying Arabic, hopefully in an even grander downtown apartment.

The “view from the sixth floor,” which was the original basis of this blog, has been rendered less literal by today’s move. But it is still figuratively expressive of the goal of my writing: to provide a reflective insider’s view of the significant events and issues taking place in Egypt less than a year and half after the popular uprising that removed Hosni Mubarak from power. I have begun supplementing these blog posts with contributions to PolicyMic, an online news platform, and I am also working on a few freelance pieces which I will post once they are published (inshallah!).