Everything New is Old Again

Omar Suliman, the vice president and the former head of the Egyptian intelligence agency, gave a short speech on national television to announce the stepping down of Mubarak after three decades in power. Mubarak's withdrawal happened due to unprecedented uprising started on January 25, 2011, in protest against the unsatisfactory living conditions, and political and economic corruption. As Egyptians transitioned from the Mubarak era, most of them had growing optimism about their future,great expectations coupled with several changes that seemed to happen at the time. This book examines the realpolitik of the country and the political culture behind it. Many changes that appeared to happen really didn't happen as everything stayed the same just with new faces in power. The Egyptian republic was born in 1952 in a state of exception, which was used as a political survival strategy. The Executive still used the same ancient maxim that "necessity has no law", Necessity was never precisely defined, and the Executive assumed wide powers, with no judicial review. Police and intelligence agencies played significant roles in manipulating the rule of law and normalize the state of exception