Did Erdogan’s influence on Morsi cause his downfall?

TEHRAN,July 17(MNA)--Just one year after its establishment in Egypt, the young government of Mohamed Morsi was ousted by the opposition and the army in what many view as a blow to democracy and freedom in the Arab country. However, the fall of Morsi was not only the result of internal disputes in Egypt. Some influential figures in the region also had a hand in things. Besides the Arab monarchs, who played a direct role in developments in Egypt over the past two years, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan should also be viewed as one of the main foreign leaders who tried to present his government as a role model for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. During his first trip to Cairo after the revolution of 2011, Erdogan advised Egyptians to adopt the model of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in their new system. Morsi seemed to be greatly influenced by the AKP and its ideology. During his one year in office, Morsi tried to limit the role of the Egyptian army. He also tried to use the maximum potential of the Muslim Brotherhood in the government and did not use a friendly tone with the opposition. All this was similar to Erdogan’s style of leadership, which is increasingly being criticized in Turkey. Morsi and Erdogan both have lived in the West and have been some of the major followers of the Muslim Brotherhood’s school of thought. This has given them similar perceptions about governance and political Islam. Morsi’s intolerant stance toward the opposition was one of the driving factors behind the recent demonstrations which finally led to his downfall. The hasty positions he adopted toward developments in the region, and especially the Syria crisis, again proved that there was a convergence of the ideas and stances of Morsi and Erdogan. This was, perhaps, the reason why Erdogan was one of the few leaders in the Middle East who harshly criticized the turn of events in Egypt and called it a coup d’état without standing on ceremony. Hassan Lasjerdi is a political analyst and an expert on Turkish politics based in Tehran. (By Hassan Lasjerdi )