Egypt's Numbers Game: How Crazy Claims of 33 Million Protesters Were Used to Boost a Coup

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Three days later, Quartet's Middle East special envoy Tony Blair hyped a drastically different, but equally curious, crowd estimate. In an  editorial for the Observer (reprinted by the Guardian), Blair stated, "Seventeen million people on the street is not the same as an election. But it is an awesome manifestation of people power." The former UK Prime Minister concluded that if a protest of a proportionate size occurred in his country, "the government wouldn't survive either."

From what source did the claim of 17 million demonstrators originate? Apparently, it was a single anonymous military official. One of the first Egyptian outlets to cite the number was the newspaper Shorouk, which headlined its June 30 report, "Military source: The number of demonstrators is 17 million and increasing."

Strangely, a day before the military told Shorouk that 17 million demonstrators were in the streets against Morsi, another unidentified military source  claimed to Reuters that 14 million were protesting. The news service noted that the figure was "implausible," but amidst the excitement and chaos, examples of critical detachment like this were rare.

Meanwhile, the Tamarod youth movement triumphantly  announced that it had collected a whopping 22 million signatures on its petition calling for early elections and Morsi's withdrawal.  European and US outlets repeated the claim without any critical scrutiny, noting that the number of signatures far exceeded the votes Morsi received when he was elected president.

Like the massive crowd estimates, Tamarod's signature counts were impossible to independently verify. Increasingly it appeared that the numbers were products of a clever public relations campaign, with the Egyptian army and its political supporters relying on the international press and Western diplomats to amplify their Mighty Wurlitzer.

'Impossible' crowd estimates collapse under scrutiny

Was there any credible source for the widely cited figure of 33 million demonstrators? It has been impossible to locate one, either in English or Arabic media. As for the estimations of 17 and 14 million anti-Morsi protesters, there does not appear to be a valid source beyond the two anonymous military officials – not exactly dispassionate observers.

On July 15, the BBC  reported that it was unable to find any legitimate sources for the opposition's claims of either 14, 17, or 33 million protesters, affirming the conclusions of BBC Middle East correspondent Wyre Davies, who concluded that mobilising such a massive number of protesters was "impossible."

Through simple Algebra, the Egyptian blogger  Shereef Ismail has also poked gaping holes in the opposition's numbers. Estimating that each protester occupied a space of approximately .45 square metres, Ismail calculated that the absolute maximum number of anti-Morsi demonstrators who could fit in the total area of major public spaces in Egyptian cities was at most 2.8 million.

There are other factors that cast doubt on the June 30 crowd estimates, like the basic logistics of cramming between 20 and 40 percent of Egypt's population into already densely populated urban spaces without a staggering number of deaths and injuries ensuing, especially in the oppressive summer heat. Yet many among the army-installed government's supporters are holding fast to their claims, insisting that "the people" led the way against the Muslim Brotherhood's anti-democratic  "ballotocracy."

The opposition may have made an impressive showing on June 30 and in the days that followed, but the stunning crowd counts it spread across the world do not seem to hold up against critical scrutiny. And as the mirage of a 30-million-person march evaporates, an unsavory military coup stands exposed.