African press review 5 July 2013

Friday’s newspapers are dominated by reactions to the ousting of the Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

It is Egypt’s second revolution according to the respected Al Ahram newspaper, which dismisses what it claims are questions of legitimacy posed by a substantial section of mainstream Western media.

Al Ahram says the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood is not a setback for the country’s alleged transition to democracy, as some vested interests claim, but one of the most potent popular revolutionary upsurges in modern history.

For the paper, twenty-two million signatures constituting nearly 50 percent of the nation’s adult population were collected, demanding President Morsi’s removal from office. This was as 17 million people (at nearly 30 percent of the adult population) took to the street, in what Al-Masry al-Youm described as an open defiance of threats by the Islamic regime to spill "rivers of blood," if necessary, to expel them.

Egyptian Daily News is full of praise for the millions of compatriots who endured hardship, intimidation, violence and constant uncertainty to topple a tyrant, and sent the generals scurrying to take cover behind the veil of a flawed democracy and bring down a would-be dictator-in-the making.

Most papers have been monitoring reactions from around the world about the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood-backed leader. Jordan condemned what it describes as an ugly coup, while Turkey holds that the power change in Cairo was not a result of the will of the people. Qatar said it will continue to back Egypt in its leading role in the Arab and Muslim worlds, while Iran pledged to respect the will of the “smart, civilized Egyptian people".

Egypt Independent reports that the African Union is likely to suspend Egypt from all its activities, when its peace and Security Council meets in Addis Ababa today to discuss the political crisis in Cairo. A senior source working for the Pan African organisation told the paper that the body is likely to implement the AU’s usual response to any interruption of constitutional rule by a member state.

The changing political landscape in Egypt draws comments from some South African newspapers. Mail and Guardian says hostility to Egypt's best organised political movement (whose slogan is "The Qur'an is our Constitution") has grown along with charges that Morsi, a veteran Muslim Brotherhood member, had tried to "Brotherhoodise" state institutions. According to the paper, Morsi aggravated the situation when he appointed seven governors from the Brotherhood and one from the Gamaa Islamiyya, the extremist group responsible for a notorious massacre at Luxor in 1997.

Kenya’s Daily Nation highlights France’s reaction to Mohamed Morsi’s removal. It reports that Paris took note that elections had been announced in Egypt following a transition period. The paper quotes foreign minister Laurent Fabius as saying that France hopes a timetable would be drawn up respecting "civil peace, pluralism, individual liberties and the achievements of the democratic transition, so that the Egyptian people can freely choose their leaders and their future."

Nigeria’s Punch newspaper wonders if the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood government could shift the dynamics of power in nearby Tunisia. According to the paper, the North African country has over the past two years suffered a wave of violence linked to radical Islamists as well as political instability, amid tensions over the draft constitution. The reaction came as French President François Hollande paid a goodwill visit to the strategic North African ally.

Punch carries remarks by the Tunisian President as he hosted the French leader. He acknowledged an “ideological divide” between “two Tunisias,” with the Islamists who lead the country’s coalition government on one side and the secular modernists on the other.

And Nelson Mandela’s name was a big hit at Thursday’s lap of the ongoing Tour de France, when South Africa’s Darryl Impey emerged as a race leader on the sixth stage at Montpellier. Mail and Guardian salutes Impey’s exploit, as he became the first African to wear the race’s yellow jersey. The cyclist wasted no time in telling the press how honoured his was to dedicate his performance to the global icon who remains in critical condition in hospital.