Deja Coup

We seem to remember something like this happening in 1973 in Chile;

Mr [Muhammed] Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected leader, is under house arrest after what he says was a military coup.

The [Egyptian] army said he had "failed to meet the demands of the people".

As in Chile, the President's supporters have fought with the army, with several killed. Hundreds of those supporters--members of the Muslim Brotherhood--have also been arrested. Mr. Morsi had a much stronger claim to democratic legitimacy (51% of the vote last year) than Chile's Salvador Allende Gossens in 1970 (36.8%). Also Mr. Allende had barely survived a vote of impeachment in the Chilean legislature. That went 81-47 against him; just short of the 2/3 needed to constitutionally oust him.

But, as in Chile, the Egyptian army, fearing civil war, stepped in to remove a defiant President who was ruling against the popular will. Only time will tell if Egypt will get a second chance at democracy. Chile did get that, and just last week-end had their presidential primaries. In which, a member of the late Salvador Allende's Socialist Party, Michelle Bachelet, won the right to run for a second term as Chile's President.

For the sake of the Egyptian people, we hope things work out as well as they did in Chile.