The Egyptian president has fallen, forced out through a combination of mass protest and the military.

I wonder if the people on the street even realise that they have been played by the old guard.

Morsi, from the Muslim Brotherhood, had a tough reign in power, elected only a year ago.

Powerless President

When before the elections it looked like there was a possibility that a Muslim Brotherhood candidate might win, the military had made a decree removing the powers of the president, in essense making him a puppet. Even then they were forced to allow him to be president by the people who at the time did not want a member of the old regime to already subvert the revolution.

However he managed to gain some real power by temporarily out manouvering the military, which resulted in the retiring of the old generals.

Poisoned Chalice Presidency

Morsi as president had to contend with a few different issues:

• The old guard of the state not wanting to hand over power
• A judiciary dominated by people appointed in the Mubarak era who did not want to move forward
• A faltering economy
• Opposition groups that were unwilling to even sit down and talk.
• A police force sulking that its power to be beyond the law had been curtailed.
• A military that while now under the nominal control of the presidency, preferred the old system where it was the only law onto itself.

The Judiciary, especially the  Supreme Constitutional Court became the hurdle too big to cross for Morsi. It was full of Mubarak era cronies that tried to undo any change.

When the Muslim Brotherhood's affiliated party won the parliamentary elections, the Supreme Constitutional Court decided that the elections were unconstitutional.

When the president tried to reform the judiciary, it ruled that the president did not have the authority to do so.

After the revolution a new process had begun to formulate a new constitution for Egypt. As the elections had been won by the Muslim Brotherhood, the committee tasked with drafting the constitution was also dominated by people affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

When the judiciary moved to dissolve this assembly, the president passed a decree preventing the judiciary from annulling the assembly and also giving him powers to replace the top prosecutor, Abdel-Maguid Mahmoud.

However this played into the oppositions hands who now stoked fears of the president becoming a dictator and the masses were brought onto the streets. When Morsi explained that this was a temporary measure, and that he was willing to compromise, the opposition decided that it did not want to even talk.

Seeing the tensions that were rising the constitutional assembly rushed through a constitution, which was probably a botch up job as its only criteria was that it needed to be finished urgently so that the president could relinquish his powers.

This constitution was put to a referenfum and it passed, even though the voter turnout was low.

Morsi reversed his presidential decree and returned the extra powers he had taken, but this did little to calm tensions and they have been steadilly rising in an organised campaign to undermine the president.

The president has sometimes offered to hold talks with the opposition in order to reconcile differences, but the opposition rarely found the idea of talking palatable. They preferred having the president kicked out of power so that it would be passed to them.

The Sins of Morsi

The president also made serious mistakes. Most of these were trying to secure loyalty and political favour when the moral course of action would have been different.

For one, in a misguided attempt to secure loyalty, he sided with the military against the people when the people wanted there to be full disclosure of the military's role in the protests against Hosni Mubarak. As recent events have shown, it did not buy him the loyalty he thought it might. He should have done the right thing and maybe that would have served him better.

Recently he also appointed the head of an allied party to the governership of Luxur, a major tourist destination in Egypt. There was major outcry as this person was the leader of a party was one that had claimed responsibility for a bombing in 1998 killing many tourists. This person has since resigned, but the initial move, which was done to shore up the president's position against the opposition was stupendous.

A further problem was the lack of solutions to the economic problems that have hit Egypt. The economic burden on the average person on the streets has increased.

Endgame

Moving back to the Supreme Constitutional Court, recently the court's declaerd that Morsi did not have the power to remove the former-top prosecutor, reappointing him to his role.

The military have decided that the president is unfit for power and the method of removing him from power has been the suggestion that the parties have failed to reach agreement on the way forward - an agreement could never have been reached when the opposition even refused to meet the president or his representatives!

The military have now revoked the new constitution and transferred power to Adly Mahmud Mansour,  the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, a man who had been a deputy head since 1992 and who completed his move to the top job on 1 July 2013.

While the people may say different, this is a coup and it has been orchestrated in an organised fashion.

The people on the streets who are cheering now have been played for mugs.