An Egyptian police officer describes his feelings at the moment Major General Omar Suleiman, the Vice President of the Republic, announced the stepping down of President Hosni Mubarak on 11 February 2011, in his memoirs published in 2023 under the title “A Witness from Among Its Own: A Life Story from the Other Bank”. He says: “I felt that everything had ended; my feelings clashed between sadness, loss, tension, anger and fear of the unknown… and I became certain that we were facing a new chapter being written of whose details we knew nothing.”
Describing the feelings of his colleagues at the police station as they followed the announcement of the stepping down on television screens, he said that some of them were crying, while tears choked in the eyes of others, and some of them did not know “a way to express their feelings or even to identify them”, and some of them did not believe what was happening.
These feelings reflect the nature of the relationship that bound the president, who was toppled by a popular revolution in protest against police practices, to the police apparatus and the Ministry of Interior, on which, together with the security agencies, he relied in running the country’s affairs. Despite these feelings, police officers managed to get past the moment, and made efforts to regain their role in maintaining public security amid a state of security breakdown, resulting from the escape of many registered dangerous offenders from police stations or prisons that had been stormed, some of which were opened on instructions from leaders in the Ministry of Interior, as the offenders seized large quantities of weapons and ammunition.
The help of citizens, who sensed the danger to their lives and property as a result of the security breakdown, and the support of the army were two decisive factors in the return of the police to carrying out their duties in maintaining security.
In a brief statement broadcast at six in the evening on Friday 11 February 2011, Major General Omar Suleiman, who had been appointed Vice President of the Republic following the Friday of Anger, announced that “in light of the difficult circumstances the country is going through, President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak has decided to relinquish the office of President of the Republic, and has assigned the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to manage the affairs of the country”.
Despite the obvious contradiction in the wording of the statement, since it would have been more accurate for the announcement of the council’s assignment to precede the decision to relinquish the office, because relinquishing the presidency does not give Mubarak the authority to issue the assignment decision, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, in its third statement issued on the same day, praised Mubarak, commending his “preference for the supreme interest of the nation”. It also extended “salutation and pride to the souls of the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the freedom and security of their country during the protests”.
Through its statement, the council sought to take a balanced position between the outgoing President of the Republic, who by virtue of his office held the chairmanship of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and the protesters staging a sit-in in Tahrir Square.
The Circumstances of the Decision to Step Down
The details of President Hosni Mubarak’s decision to step down remain obscure, as it has not yet become clear whether the decision was taken voluntarily, came under pressure, or was announced on his behalf after he had in effect been removed. The information available about that period is limited, and the accounts are contradictory, the most prominent being the view of foreign observers that what happened was a soft coup led by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to thwart the scenario of bequeathing power to his son Gamal Mubarak, who held the post of Secretary of the Policies Committee in the National Democratic Party. This committee, which imposed its control over most political decisions from its founding, was considered the political lever of the succession project, despite the absence of any official statement from Mubarak, his aides or senior officials of the state and the party confirming this scenario. Even public appeals, such as the one made by the late journalist and writer Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, who called on Mubarak to deny the project as a violation of the traditions of the Egyptian state and the republican system, were met with silence.
It is difficult to separate the decision to step down from Mubarak’s manoeuvres to remain in power, amid rising popular anger and growing numbers of protesters staging sit-ins in Tahrir Square and other squares in major cities, such as Alexandria and Suez. Nor can one overlook the assessments by security and political circles at home and abroad of the gravity of the situation, along with the mounting pressure on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to intervene and settle the crisis.
An analysis of Mubarak’s three speeches after the Friday of Anger and up to the eve of the announcement of his stepping down reveals his clear clinging to power until the last moments. Although the tone of his speeches changed compared with the period before the outbreak of the revolution, his positions continued to swing between attempts at calming the situation and displays of confidence. Previously, Mubarak’s tone ranged between excessive confidence and provocation, which was evident in his mockery of the opposition that founded a council parallel to the People’s Assembly following the 2010 elections, which were marred by widespread fraud according to local and international reports. His famous phrase “let them amuse themselves”, in the speech opening the People’s Assembly and the Shura Council, remains evidence of his disdain for the opposition, before the features of the political scene changed entirely under the pressure of the revolution.
The analysis indicates that Mubarak’s three speeches reflected a state of wavering between manoeuvring, an implicit threat of chaos, and attempts at pleading and appealing for sympathy. In his first speech, broadcast at dawn on 29 January, five days after the demonstrations began, Mubarak rejected the idea of relinquishing power or making substantive concessions, and merely announced a change of government, an amendment that disappointed the protesters’ hopes. The speech was marked by an evasive tone, as he placed the blame on “political forces” he did not name, accusing them of stirring up the demonstrations and trading on their slogans, while at the same time calling for dialogue and for staying away from violence and chaos. In a clear contradiction, Mubarak asserted that the 25 January demonstrations and the protests that preceded them had been possible thanks to what he described as “broad spaces of freedom”, at a time when the authorities had cut off communication networks and the internet to isolate the demonstrators and prevent their voices from reaching the outside world, while restricting the work of Arab and international media in covering the events. Although he appointed Omar Suleiman as his vice president on 29 January, in an implicit signal that the succession scenario was receding, his speech did not offer sufficient reassurance to the street.
In his second speech, broadcast on 1 February, Mubarak announced that he did not intend to run for a new term, and assigned his vice president Omar Suleiman to open a dialogue with the political forces on issues of reform and constitutional amendments. Although the speech carried a clearly emotional character, it was not free of threat, when he said that “the events of the past few days impose on us, as a people and a leadership, the choice between chaos and stability”. This hint of chaos was soon translated by events on the ground the following day, in what became known as the “Battle of the Camel”, when the demonstrators in Tahrir Square were subjected to a violent attack by groups of thugs, in an attempt to intimidate the protesters and break their sit-in.
His third and final speech, broadcast on the evening of 10 February, came as a last attempt to win the sympathy of citizens, especially young people, by stressing his readiness for dialogue and a peaceful transfer of power. Mubarak promised substantive constitutional and legislative amendments, and announced his intention to repeal the emergency law, which had remained in force for decades. But at the same time, he tried to belittle the popular movement, claiming that the demands for change came through foreign dictates. Despite these attempts, the speech appeared detached from the reality of the street, which had already moved beyond these points, holding fast to the demand for the departure of the regime in its entirety, which was achieved the following day with the official announcement of his stepping down.
In all three speeches, Mubarak remained clinging to the hope of staying in power, while the protesters’ insistence on his departure was growing. Cables and reports revealed with the leak of the emails of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton state that the revolution was advancing rapidly and that Mubarak had already lost, with warnings of the dire consequences for the interests of the United States of suppressing the uprising by force.
The document monitored the conditions of the revolution on the ground in the governorates of Alexandria and Suez, asserting that they were far more heated than the conditions in Cairo, and indicating that the army wanted to preserve itself and did not want to become embroiled in a bloody conflict, and it concluded that Mubarak’s departure “had become merely a matter of time”. A message dated 2 February asserted that the army was still maintaining neutrality in the confrontations taking place in the street, and that those leading the confrontation on behalf of the regime were violent groups of police officers and former leaders of the security agencies, but that they were of no political significance. The message indicated that Egypt had only a few days before it would enter a domestic food crisis, which was putting pressure on the army to intervene and end the political impasse in order to prevent a real popular impasse. In a cable dated 10 February, the behind-the-scenes events of Mubarak’s last speech and his last day in power were revealed, and it pointed to a disagreement over the content of the speech between Mubarak and the military council over the terms of his stepping down; and a message dated 12 February revealed that Major General Hassan El-Roweiny, commander of the Central Military Zone, informed the other members of the military council that the army would not be able to confront the demonstrators’ plans to march on the presidential palace and storm it and storm other government institutions without an extensive use of violence that would destroy the relationship between the army and the people, which prompted Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and Lieutenant General Sami Anan, the Chief of Staff, to meet Mubarak to persuade him to step down, and the meeting resulted in a temporary compromise under which Mubarak would move to his home in Sharm El-Sheikh while retaining the title of president nominally, with the country to be run by the vice president, but under the supervision of the military council; but Mubarak’s last speech left negative impressions among the angry revolutionaries about the president’s intentions, while reports indicated that this would lead to bloody confrontations as the protesters announced the start of the march towards the presidential palace, and that they enjoyed noticeable sympathy from junior officers, which was confirmed by the General Intelligence, which prompted the Chief of Staff to meet Mubarak and ask him again to step down, in exchange for leaving with sufficient personal wealth and a pledge from the military council that it would guarantee him a dignified exit, and Mubarak finally agreed to these terms and accepted the announcement of his stepping down.
Regardless of the accuracy of the facts in these cables, which relied on the reports of an American journalist close to Clinton, the course of events and the developments of the situation indicated that political solutions had overtaken Mubarak, and the Supreme Council preceded his last speech by issuing its first statement on its permanent convening without the presence of the president, in a sign that Mubarak no longer controlled matters and that the army did not object to his stepping down, after the US administration had settled its position following Mubarak’s rejection of its proposals to calm the situation, and chose the most optimistic scenario, namely removing Mubarak and electing a democratic government in Egypt, despite the risks this entails for its interests through the loss of a strategic ally.
The Regime Between the State and the Revolution
The decision to step down reflects the army’s role in preserving the state and the political regime, in a way that highlights the political role of armies in general, since modern armies, by their definition, play a role in maintaining stability that has been expanded to include guarding the constitution or the existing regime against dangers that may threaten the stability of the state and the safety of society. This role prompted some military analysts to speak of a new type of revolution in which peoples unite with armies to bring about the desired changes, especially in newly independent states, where armies play a role in the process of state-building, or in accelerating the transition from one phase to another. It is clear that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces played a major role in making the decision to step down, in the form in which it emerged, and secured for itself the leading role in the post-Mubarak phase, and widened its margin of manoeuvre to deal with the difficult circumstances that resulted from the revolution of broad sectors of the people against his rule, which was gaining momentum every day. The council’s leaders realised that their defence of the president’s remaining in office would place them in a difficult contradiction with the masses gathered in the squares, that the popular anger which had been directed at the police and the Minister of Interior had expanded to include the ruling party and the President of the Republic, and that it had to step away from the Mubarak regime and its policies in order to gain a foothold in any new arrangements in the future, and that this required it to take initiatives consistent with the public mood, despite assessments by circles in the security agencies that what was happening was the result of a foreign conspiracy, and that the Muslim Brotherhood and some opposition forces and young activists were involved in it, even though this theory prevailed at a later time, after their success in containing the revolution by dismantling the unity shown by the protesters staging the sit-in in Tahrir Square.
The victory of the protesters staging the sit-in in Tahrir Square in the “Battle of the Camel”, on 2 February, over the groups that tried to break up the sit-in by force, was the real starting moment of what happened on 11 February, and it was the moment that pushed the pillars of the regime to realise that preserving the state and its foundations required them not to clash with the revolution by armed force. This confrontation, which left ten dead and thousands injured among the sit-in protesters in the square who were attacked, was evidence of the protesters’ determination to topple Mubarak, and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and the armed forces found that it was their duty to protect the sit-in protesters and prevent further clashes. The square expressed a common demand of all the sects, groups and classes of the Egyptian people, and the sit-in protesters represented the revolution that no one could resist or stand in the way of. Accordingly, the decision to step down was necessary so that the military council could regain control over the course of events in an inflamed situation that was about to explode at any moment and spin out of control, and preserve the regime and the state.
Despite the political ambitions of Mr Gamal Mubarak, the president’s son, there is nothing to confirm, even at this moment, whether there actually was a scenario of bequeathing power, or whether we were facing a process of major political transformation in Egypt, supervised by the Policies Secretariat of the ruling party, aimed at limiting the influence the army enjoys in the political system. But with Mubarak’s departure and the handover of power to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the army was able to restore its central position in shaping the country’s political future, without disturbing the existing balance, which leans heavily in favour of the President of the Republic and the executive authority, which dominates the legislative authority by guaranteeing a majority in parliament, and whose relationship with the judicial authority has ranged between harmony and tension.
The decision to step down reveals the nature of civil-military relations in the Egyptian state, which indicate that the army’s leaders operate within the framework of the constitution despite the pivotal role the army plays in the political system, as the last line of defence of the state against internal and external dangers, and despite its possessing the ability to take decisive decisions and implement them. Hence Egypt has not witnessed further military coups since the Free Officers movement of 23 July 1952, the overthrow of the monarchy and the declaration of the republic, with all parties aware of the army’s decisive role in supporting the regime and stability and consolidating the legitimacy of the ruler, as happened in May 1971, when the army’s leaders sided with President Sadat against his opponents, who controlled the pillars of power through their positions in the Arab Socialist Union, the country’s sole political party at the time, and in security institutions and the government, and as happened in 1981, after the assassination of President Sadat and the transfer of power to President Mubarak in the face of a plan for an armed rebellion led by the Jihad organisation, then in February 1986 after the mutiny of Central Security conscripts, and finally on 3 July 2013, with the removal of President Mohamed Morsi and the overthrow of the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Egyptian army, like other modern armies, was able to link itself to the idea of the state, and a conviction prevailed among the various political groups that it is the only institution capable of representing the state as opposed to the other groups and categories, and of preserving its unity and institutional cohesion. It was able to prove on more than one occasion its siding with the public interest against the partial interests of social and political forces, relying in this on its being the only institution that possesses force, and the one most capable of organised action in situations of social conflict, crises and even natural disasters, as the largest, strongest and most disciplined of all the institutions of the state and society, amid the weakness of modern institutions. The Egyptian army enjoyed a unique position by relying on the support of the civilian middle classes, which saw it as the protector of their way of life, threatened in the event of the Islamists taking control of power, which became clear in the aftermath of Mubarak’s stepping down in 2011. Although the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces relied on figures linked to the Muslim Brotherhood to pass the constitutional amendments and to block the demands for drafting a new constitution under the conditions that prevailed, it benefited from its social base, represented by the urban middle classes, which expressed their fear for their way of life from Islamist domination, something that pushed them to bet on the old regime and the army. The divisions among the political forces and the inability of the political forces to disagree under the roof of democratically elected institutions, and indeed the attempts of a number of them to win it over to their side against other forces, provided it with a wide margin of manoeuvre during its management of the transitional phase and beyond, and it exploited all these forces to become the institution enjoying a consensus among political forces that agreed on nothing else.
Editorial correction: The first version of the report stated that Mubarak appointed Omar Suleiman as his vice president on the day after his first speech, which was broadcast at dawn on 29 January; the correct position is that the appointment took place on 29 January 2011 itself.
Editorial correction: The first version of the report stated that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces responded to Mubarak’s last speech by issuing its first statement; the correct position is that the council issued its first statement on permanent convening on the evening of 10 February 2011, before Mubarak’s last speech was broadcast on the same night.
Editorial correction: The first version of the report stated that the Free Officers movement took place on 23 June 1952; the correct date is 23 July 1952.
