Of all the complications to reestablishing state control, including southern secessionists, a Zaydi Shi'ite revival movement tussling with Sunni Islamists and a covert U.S. missile war on militants, the role of Washington's former strongman in Sanaa has emerged as perhaps the most pressing

Saleh still wields influence through his control of the General People's Congress (GPC) party, a ruling coalition partner, and through powerful relatives who run elite military and security units

"Revenge dominates in Yemeni society. If people feel wronged and no one gives them justice they will try to get it themselves in any way," said Human Rights Minister Hooria Mashhour.

Political analyst Abdulghani al-Iryani said there was little chance of the old order reestablishing itself, though Saleh and the north Yemeni tribal and religious elites would try to resist the shift to decentralisation. "It's impossible. If you look at the historical patterns, his regime survived for so long against the law of gravity," Iryani said.

political engagement is not necessarily a slippery slope to interventionism

boosting liberalization through economic means has proven to be unsatisfactory

The EU’s emphasis on a security-centered approach in migration management and the prioritization of stability over democracy in the MENA region, have led to widening the Euro-Mediterranean gap.

bridging the gap between a European and an Arab perspective of current changes in the Arab region is crucial

financing research and empowering academic and media discourses that help depict Arab narratives away from Western-centric and orientalist interpretative frameworks can set the tone for the development of a more balanced dialogue

The former Barcelona process and the Union for the Mediterranean (UFM), currently criticized for compartmentalizing issues of co-operation whilst sidelining core political problems, have called into question the multilateral dimension of Euro-Arab co-operation

while the bilateral approach can help boost democratic transitions in individual countries, tackling in the long term structural issues obstructing reform and good governance in the MENA region would still require multilateral channels

“We’ve been working in this society for 25 years and have done well in parliamentary elections in Minufiyya since 1987.” They agreed that anti-Brother rumors, money, the security services and police, and the strength of the old ruling party had factored into the result. Yusuf added that many army privates are recruited from Minufiyya.

The local councils in this country are nests of the old system, with corruption up to their knees. It’s time to cleanse these sites because this is where the day-to-day interactions with the people happen

more autocratic reconfiguration than political transition

The three separate entities are not coequal in power. As the presumed champions of the old order, the SCAF remains a leviathan with national support despite its deep unpopularity among activist networks. The SCAF miscalculates all the time but never in ways that endanger its tightening grip over the Brothers and the third forces.

the Brothers will likely fall prey to the SCAF’s ultimatums, as they clearly are not up to the task of wresting power from the military

If Mursi moves to favor the street, the generals could mobilize the state and anti-Brother discourse in the media to paralyze his presidency. Should Mursi instead cut a deal with the SCAF, he will enrage the protest movement, parts of which were involved in swinging the election his way. And, given the constitutional declaration, Mursi’s presidency has an asterisk beside it before it even begins. [5]

plenty of dubious activity probably happened away from polling stations. In all nine of Minufiyya’s electoral centers, the Muslim Brothers told the same story, lamenting the amount of money that had filtered into the local towns and villages. Many of the people allegedly distributing cash were local council representatives from the former ruling party. The Shafiq campaign also lodged complaints against the Brothers, but they were less convincing, such as the claim that a Brother had thrown a Molotov cocktail at a shopkeeper. At any rate, along with the high stakes, the aggressive campaign tactics on both sides are one reason why the runoff’s turnout eclipsed that of the first round (46 percent)

comparisons with the mighty Pakistani army are not misplaced. [6]

Since Mubarak’s ouster in Feburary 2011, the SCAF has called the Egyptian people to the polls five times. Three occasions have been particularly momentous: the March 2011 constitutional referendum, the wintertime parliamentary contests and now the presidential runoff. In each of these three instances, the generals have pulled a bait and switch, gutting the voting of meaning after it was over. Ten days after the referendum, which received 77 percent of the vote, the SCAF unilaterally decreed an additional 54 amendments that the public had never seen. Then the parliamentary elections helped to construct an elite arena that excluded the revolutionary forces from negotiations over a pacted transition. [7] The elections thus produced two parallel universes: one of the transition and one of revolution. [8] Key political forces, including the Brothers, kept the country stable while the SCAF reestablished the state’s control over the street. Finally, minutes after the presidential polls closed, the SCAF mooted the last exercise with its second constitutional annex.

what happens when an electoral exercise does not yield a predetermined result or an absurdly large margin of victory for the incumbent? Is it unequivocally about voter choice? Does it cease to be a spectacle? The experience of post-Mubarak Egypt to date suggests that choice and spectacle are not mutually exclusive. The outcomes have not been preordained; in the presidential race, the rulers’ preferred candidate lost. Yet the hubbub surrounding the elections has assisted in ingraining a supra-constitutional force into the political system while promoting an image of Egypt as polarized between two, and only two, views: the fuloul and the Brothers. In the medium term, at least, the SCAF will aim to play these poles off one another in monarchical fashion while simultaneously tamping down the politics of the street. This deleterious outcome -- rather than democratic empowerment -- is likely to be the legacy of Egypt’s first post-Mubarak presidential election.

bifurcated sovereignty — a military state within a state

Supporters and critics of what has emerged both agree that what the generals are doing is aiming to create a system similar to what emerged in Turkey in 1981, after a military coup

Egypt’s generals recently activated a dormant National Defense Council packed with military personnel that could play a similar role

Mr. Sadat, who is close to the generals, emphasized the ultimate outcome. “Over time the generals know they are losing power and control, the same as happened in Turkey,”

The generals’ focus on securing their permanent autonomy and influence has been an unstated theme of why they came to power. Their intentions were made clear with a recently issued decree that gave them control of legislation and the budget until the election of a new Parliament. It also handed the Mubarak-appointees on the Supreme Constitutional Court jurisdiction to strike down provisions of the next Constitution. Nathan J. Brown, a legal scholar at George Washington University, called the provision to give the holdover court such unrestricted power “a constitutional obscenity.”

“Democracy isn’t only about casting votes; it’s about building a democratic infrastructure. We put the cart in front of the horse,”

Perhaps mindful of the problem Ozel faces stamping authority over a military shell-shocked by mass arrests, Erdogan recently criticized special prosecutors for ordering too many detentions.Critics had hitherto seen the prosecutors as "attack dogs" for Erdogan's government as it strove to bring the army to heel and convince the electorate that the AKP was its best bet to break Turkey's cycle of coups.His AK Party is now working on plans to dissolve the courts - a measure that could result in a collapse of the cases and undermine Erdogan's credibility.

With his opponents scattered, Erdogan may have decided now is the time to muzzle prosecutors, and give General Ozel a chance to rebuild morale.

Celebrations for national holidays have lost some of their militaristic trappings, and dress rules at military social engagements have been relaxed so, for example, the wives of President Gul or Prime Minister Erdogan are no longer unwelcome because they wear Muslim headscarves

Turkish forces haven't fought in any war since the early 1950s in Korea, but the people's emotional attachment to the armed forces is reinforced regularly with funerals for soldiers killed in the long-running separatist conflict with the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)

"The Turkish public really does love its armed forces."

Many suspect cases have been cooked up, with public opinion shaped by leaks to newspapers like Taraf and Zaman, closely tied to the Islamic movement headed by Fethullah Gulen."Too much of the evidence is doubtful to believe the investigations are aimed at further democratization,"

The military's forays into the political arena have become increasingly rare. General Ozel has made none.

A total 364 officers, serving and retired are being tried in connection with the plot