Egypt’s Government Struggles to Gain Footing as Dissent Grows

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Students who support Mohamed Morsi, the deposed president, demonstrated in the Nasr City section of Cairo on Sunday.

By KAREEM FAHIM

Published: November 25, 2013

CAIRO — When the new military-backed Egyptian governmentlifted a nationwide state of emergency more than 10 days ago, it seemed to be proclaiming a momentary victory in the battle with its principal foe, the Muslim Brotherhood, whose regular protests had begun to wither.

But the government’s problems hardly abated. In brazen and occasionally spectacular attacks, militants have stepped up a campaign of assassinations and bombings aimed at the security services.

Non-Islamist critics have accused the government of incompetence or growing authoritarianism, potentially broadening the opposition beyond supporters of Mohamed Morsi, the deposed Islamist president. At the same time, unrest has begun to surface in different places, lately sweeping up Islamist students on university campuses.

And notably, small cracks have begun to appear in the coalition that supported the ouster of Mr. Morsi as the government has faced anger from recent allies and rare criticism in the once-fawning local news media. It has become harder for officials to blame the Brotherhood for all the nation’s woes, nearly five months after it was swept from power and then battered by a relentless campaign of state repression. But rather than trying to move beyond the conflict, the government still seems largely shaped by it.

Officials have started to dismiss critics using the language of previous autocratic rulers, blaming a shadowy fifth column or foreign meddling. And in response to dissent, they have drafted repressive new laws to replace the state of emergency, including a law issued on Sunday that bans protests by more than 10 people without the government’s approval.

“They have kept alive the idea of ‘enemies of the nation’ and the war on terror — the only glue keeping the bits and pieces together,” said Rabab el-Mahdi, a political science professor at the American University of Cairo, speaking of the interim government. “For any ruling alliance to be stable, it cannot depend on force or coercion. They lack any kind of ideological shield, except being against the Brotherhood.”

“They are not delivering,” Ms. Mahdi added, “and they will keep facing the dissent.”

Some of the criticism of the government seems to be the result of competing agendas within state institutions, rather than from spontaneous outrage. Analysts say that calls for an even harsher crackdown on the Islamists, for example, could emanate from security agencies that the government, like its predecessors, has made no attempt to reform.

To solidify its legitimacy, the government has started an aggressive campaign to promote a referendum on a draft constitution, the first milestone in a so-called road map that the military has promised will restore democracy to Egypt. Officials hope a decisive approval of the constitution would undercut the Muslim Brotherhood’s claim that it alone commands popular support, after prevailing in successive elections over the last three years.

The vote is scheduled for January. The outcome has the potential to change the nature of the conflict between the state and the Brotherhood, according to Michael Wahid Hanna, a scholar at the Century Foundation in New York who studies Egypt.

“Does it pass by more than the Morsi constitution?” he asked, referring to the 2012 Constitution that was approved by 63 percent of voters, despite vigorous opposition of the drafting process and the charter from non-Islamists.

If the referendum were to be approved by a wide margin, the Brotherhood, which has resisted the idea of negotiation on the military’s terms, could be “well and truly isolated, and they might have to reconsider,” Mr. Hanna said.

These days, though, the state’s conflict with the Brotherhood is just one of its many struggles. In an unnerving episode for the government, leftists and other activists who were in the forefront of the 2011 revolt against former President Hosni Mubarak demonstrated against both the Brotherhood and the military in Cairo’s Tahrir Square last week. The activists tore down the base of a planned memorial to protesters who were killed during the revolt, and two demonstrators were killed in clashes with the police.

Even some commentators who had enthusiastically backed the military’s ouster of Mr. Morsi have bluntly criticized the government recently.