[Al Ahram] Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Bahaaeddin said on an interview with CNN Monday that Egypt had deviated from the "proper path to democracy," linking the deviation to ousted president Mohammed Morsi...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the
One Man, One Vote, One Timeprinciple, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator...
's tumultuous year in power.
The deputy prime minister is on a visit to Washington to shore up ties between the two longstanding allies and attend the US Chamber of Commerce's US-Egypt Business Council, state news agency MENA said on Monday.
"Egyptians are suffering," Bahaaeddin said in the interview. "But let's make no mistake about this: Egyptians are suffering as a result of the policies that were adopted particularly during the year of the reign of ex-president Morsi."
Morsi, the country's first freely-elected president, was ousted by Egypt's army amid mass protests against his one-year rule. The toppled leader, who had been held incommunicado since his removal in July, made his first public appearance in court on Monday, along with other Islamist co-defendants, on charges of inciting violence.
The deputy prime minister blamed the state of affairs on the toppled leader, saying that during Morsi's troubled one-year rule "freedoms began to be taken" and "the constitution was no longer upheld."
"We need to keep our eyes fixed on not continuing in that road, and as quickly as possible, as strongly as possible, going back to a proper path of democracy," Bahaaeddin urged.
Bahaaeddin stressed on the necessity for swift progress, adding that "We should expect some things to happen the right way, some things [to] take more time, some things to be bumpy -- but at the end what matters is whether we are progressing in the right direction, and I think we are."