The news that Egypt's ousted president Mohamed Morsi is to go on trial at the start of next month, charged with inciting murder and violence is bound to rekindle the fires of division that have burnt so dangerously. Muslim Brotherhood supporters of course will have a further reason to defy the interim government. They will argue that Morsi's prosecution is the military's revenge for the trial of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, the former air force general who was overthrown in the popular revolt in February 2011. Indeed the charges leveled against Morsi are similar to those of premeditated murder made against Mubarak, who was also, however, charged with corruption. Yet there will be those who think that Morsi's greatest crime is being ignored - that of political ineptitude and blindness in the face of a great deal of wise advice, not least that given by a few astute members of the Brotherhood itself. To be fair to Morsi, almost from the moment he took office, he could see the danger posed by the military. He was taking over a political establishment, the “Deep State” which had grown in power and influence from the days of Nasser's revolution. His sense of beleaguerment can only have increased as the judiciary challenged his attempt to call fresh elections and the legality of the moderate Islamic constitution of December 12. Perhaps he did not appreciate the irony that when he granted himself sweeping executive powers earlier that year, it was the army that had to march on to the streets to protect him from angry crowds protesting that he had made himself more powerful even than Mubarak. And this is Morsi's real crime. He never appeared to understand the basic political proposition that had brought him to power. The fact that his Freedom and Justice Party had won a parliamentary election and he himself had gained the presidency did not bestow on them the power to fix Egypt's newfound democracy so that their chances of hanging on to power could be stretched out into the indefinite future. Egyptians voted for Morsi and his people for two good reasons. First, for years the Brotherhood had operated a successful welfare program that supported hundreds of thousands of the country's poor. They also had a reputation for honesty. Meanwhile, the secular parties that emerged after Mubarak's ouster were seen as greedy for power and some appeared too closely linked to the old regime, especially to the army. Nevertheless they attracted the support of many Egyptians. Morsi's failure to work with them, to try and build a political consensus in the new Egypt was a colossal blunder. His crime was that in being purely partisan, in refusing to share power and embrace a pluralist vision of the country, he betrayed the revolution and he dishonored all those who died to bring it about. Moreover, after his ouster, he refused to call on his supporters to avoid confrontation thus triggering the violence and bloodshed that has disfigured Egypt these past months. Maybe in legal terms a man cannot be charged with utter lack of judgement, even stupidity. Nevertheless, the effect of Morsi's incompetent leadership, his refusal to listen to the counsel of anyone except his small inner circle, has proved by its bloody outcome as criminal as it is tragic.
