In the early hours of 8 July 51 Muslim Brotherhood supporters were killed outside a Cairo barracks, where they believe Mohamed Morsi is being held. The Muslim Brotherhood claim its members were fired on as they staged a sit-in, while the army said it had responded to an armed provocation.

Egypt’s military have moved quickly installing a new interim president, Adly Mansour, the chief justice of Egypt’s constitutional court. Adly Mansour has subsequently set out a timetable for amending the constitution, and for parliamentary and presidential elections for early 2014

With events developing at great speed we will be taking stock of what has happened and asking what this means for Egypt’s future.

Chaired by Jonathan Rugman, foreign affairs correspondent at Channel 4 News.

The panel:

Dina Wahba is an independent activist.

Mohamed Yehia is the multi-media editor at BBC Arabic.

Mona Al-Qazzaz is six months away from obtaining her PhD degree at Cambridge University. She participated in the revolution in January 2011 and she is currently the spokesperson of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK. Her brother is one of the senior assistants of Mohamed Morsi who has been facing incommunicado detention.

Dr Maha Azzam is an associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House.

Dr Omar Ashour is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. He is the author of The De-Radicalization of Jihadists: Transforming Armed Islamist Movements.

Mohammed Mursi has become Egypt’s first democratically elected president – but while he may have been chosen as the people’s representative, the country still has to contend with the powerful Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), who may thwart any attempt at change. The panel was divided over Mursi’s ability to bring the country together and to pursue the desperately needed reforms to security, the economy and the political landscape. 

Dr Maha Azzam from Chatham House and Dr Omar Ashour from Exeter University were both concerned by the enormity of the task faced by Mursi. But they remained hopeful that he would succeed in moving away from a military dictatorship so long as he could mobilise popular support.  They both argued that his democratic mandate was already a major political and institutional step in the right direction, however he faced challenges in steering the institutions of state away from the shadows of Mubarak’s regime. 

Tariq Ramadan from Oxford University struck a more pessimistic note, arguing that Mursi’s election was nothing more than a symbol behind which the military continued to govern. The panel seemed to agree with his claim that the military had their finger on the ‘reset button’, and could reverse democratic reform at any moment. 

Khalid Abdalla, a British-Egyptian actor, producer and activist also suggested that the political transition was more symbolic than real, and that military were still ‘writing the rules of the game’. However he passionately argued that the greatest change occurred in the hearts and minds of the people: they were no longer afraid, and would continue to challenge the military – a point upon which all the panel agreed.

Carina Kamel, a senior correspondent for Al Arabiya drew attention to the loss of trust suffered by the Muslim Brotherhood, and argued that it was a divisive force in Egypt – making it even harder for Mursi to govern. Her claims split the panel, underlining the uncertainty surrounding the Brotherhood’s ability to govern and stand up to the military. She then rounded on Egypt’s economy, its dire state and the extent to which it was controlled by the Generals – further undermining Muri’s mandate.

The panel were united in their analysis of external influences on Egypt. They agreed that in the past the US was never far behind Egypt’s military, but warned that their influence could decline as Egypt sought to forge new links with emerging powers. 

The audience made incisive interventions, drawing attention to the struggle of women under an Islamist government, the tendency for military regimes to endure, while pushing the panel to talk more about Egypt’s economy and its relations with the military. 

Watch the full event here:

Following the tumultuous events in Egypt we are holding a special First Wednesday debate to both take stock and to look at the impact that the ousting of president Hosni Mubarak could have on Egypt and its neighbours in the Middle East.

We will be joined by experts on the region and journalists fresh from reporting the remarkable events in Egypt to discuss the nature of the protests and what lies ahead for the country.

With the constitution suspended, parliament dissolved and power is in the hands of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, can the people’s hope of Democracy be fulfilled?

What inspiration will people in other countries in the Middle East take from the fact that Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and the Egyptian president have both been forced to step down?

Join us as we discuss the prospects for democracy throughout the region.

Chaired by Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House.

With:

Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor for Channel 4 News;

Dr Omar Ashour, lecturer in Middle East politics and the director of the MA in Middle East Studies Program at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, author of The De-Radicalization of Jihadists: Transforming Armed Islamist Movements and a pro-democracy activist close to the youth movement in Cairo;

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor at the Observer;

Dr Maha Azzam, Associate Fellow of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House;

Ahdaf Soueif, political and cultural commentator and author of the bestselling The Map of Love which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1999 (via Skype from Cairo).

Picture credit: Adam Makery, Al Jazeera English