In in wake of a his­toric runoff where the scope of pow­ers of the newly elected pres­i­dent is thrown into ques­tion fol­low­ing the dis­so­lu­tion of the par­lia­ment and the con­sti­tu­tional com­mit­tee, one might won­der just who’s going to be in charge in Egypt and how much power are they going to have in the interim while the new path for­ward gets laid down. The Egypt­ian mil­i­tary just answered that ques­tion. Not much:

Wash­ing­ton Post
Egypt mil­i­tary issues decree giv­ing armed forces sweep­ing pow­ers as early results of pres­i­den­tial vote trickle in

By Leila Fadel and Ernesto Lon­doño, Updated: Sun­day, June 17, 4:41 PM

CAIRO — Shortly after polls in Egypt’s land­mark pres­i­den­tial vote closed Sun­day night, Egypt’s mil­i­tary lead­ers issued a con­sti­tu­tional decree that gave the armed forces vast pow­ers and appeared to give the pres­i­dency a sub­servient role.

The dec­la­ra­tion, pub­lished in the offi­cial state gazette, estab­lishes that the pres­i­dent will have no con­trol over the military’s bud­get or lead­er­ship and will not be autho­rized to declare war with­out the con­sent of the Supreme Coun­cil of the Armed Forces.

The doc­u­ment said the mil­i­tary would soon appoint a body to draft a new con­sti­tu­tion, which would be put to a pub­lic ref­er­en­dum within three months. Once a new char­ter is in place, an elec­tion will be held to chose a par­lia­ment that will replace the Islamist-dominated one dis­solved Thurs­day by the country’s top court.

...

You have to won­der just how dif­fer­ent the reor­ga­ni­za­tion of civil soci­ety and gov­ern­ment will be if we see a repeat of the show­down in Tahrir Square between the pub­lic and the military.

There are some past pre­dic­tions at the end of this arti­cle that are top­i­cally trou­bling:

Al Ara­biya
Egypt could plunge into Alge­ria like sce­nario of bloody vio­lence: Alger­ian Islamists

Sun­day, 17 June 2012

By Ramadan Belamry

Egypt could plunge into an “Alge­ria like sce­nario” of bloody vio­lence after the rul­ing mil­i­tary coun­cil exe­cuted a court order to dis­solve the country’s elected par­lia­ment, Alger­ian Islamist lead­ers warned on Sunday.

Alge­ria expe­ri­enced a decade-long civil war which wit­nessed excep­tional sav­agery and bloody vio­lence when the mil­i­tary inter­vened in 1992 to unseat Pres­i­dent Chadli Bend­je­did and can­cel the sec­ond round of an elec­tion after the Islamic Sal­va­tion Front (FIS) won the first round.

For­mer FIS founder el-Hachemi Sah­nouni described events in Egypt in the past few days “as an explicit coup against the people’s will, and it would only bring about evil regard­less of what the mil­i­tary coun­cil says.”

Sah­nouni told Al Ara­biya that he was “wor­ried that the biggest Arab coun­try might plunge into vio­lence sim­i­lar to what occurred in Algeria.”

“If this hap­pens, it will be a cat­a­stro­phe not only for Egypt but for all of the Arab countries.”

Sah­nouni added that the dis­so­lu­tion of Egypt’s Islamist-dominated par­lia­ment was “sim­i­lar to what hap­pened in Alge­ria in 1991.”

...

Before it announced run­ning for pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, Egypt’s Mus­lim Broth­er­hood move­ment warned in March 2012 that the coun­try could expe­ri­ence an Alger­ian like sce­nario if “other forces” tried to “block the Islamic trend.”

“If the Islamic trend tries to become dom­i­nant in posi­tions of author­ity, we could encounter big prob­lems,” said Mohamed el-Beltagi, Broth­er­hood leader, accord­ing to Egypt Inde­pen­dent.
u
“If the other forces strive to block or cen­sor the Islamic trend we will encounter a big­ger prob­lem,” he added.

(Trans­lated from Ara­bic by Mustapha Ajbaili)

It’s hard to know what exactly to expect upon read­ing this update on Egypt’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, but three words come to mind:

Duck and cover:

Report: Shafik to be named Egypt­ian pres­i­dent
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 1:28 PM EDT, Fri June 22, 2012

Cairo (CNN) — Ahmed Shafik, the last prime min­is­ter under for­mer Egypt­ian leader Hosni Mubarak, will be named the country’s new pres­i­dent on Sun­day, the semi-official Ahram Online news site reported Fri­day, cit­ing sev­eral unnamed gov­ern­ment sources.

There’s been no offi­cial con­fir­ma­tion from the lead­er­ship in Cairo as the coun­try anx­iously awaited the results of last week’s run-off elec­tion between Shafik and Mus­lim Broth­er­hood can­di­date Mohamed Morsi, both of whom have claimed they’ve won the election.

Shafik will be declared vic­tor with 50.7% of the vote, the news out­let said.

Sources at the country’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion com­mis­sion would not con­firm claims of Shafik’s vic­tory. Thou­sands gath­ered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the cen­ter of last year’s rev­o­lu­tion that led to the top­pling of Mubarak, as the news report circulated.

Ear­lier Fri­day, Egypt’s mil­i­tary rulers said they won’t reverse their widely deplored con­sti­tu­tional and judi­cial changes and warned politi­cians to keep a lid on election-related unrest.

“We will face any­one who will pose a chal­lenge to the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors with an iron fist,” the Supreme Coun­cil of the Armed Forces said.

Mil­i­tary rulers dis­solved the lower house of par­lia­ment last week, extend­ing their power and spark­ing accu­sa­tions of a coup.

...

Egypt’s Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tion Com­mis­sion has delayed, from Thurs­day until a date to be announced, the release of the results of the elec­tions. An elec­toral offi­cial said author­i­ties are review­ing around 400 elec­toral vio­la­tion reports sub­mit­ted by the two candidates.

Egypt­ian reform leader Mohamed ElBa­radei — the for­mer head of U.N. Inter­na­tional Atomic Energy Agency and the win­ner of a Nobel Peace Prize — said he’s been in close con­tact with the mil­i­tary coun­cil and the intel­li­gence ser­vices on the one hand, and Morsi on the other, and has urged them to avoid a showdown.

He said if Shafik, seen as a can­di­date of the pro-Mubarak old guard, is declared the win­ner “we are in for a lot of insta­bil­ity and vio­lence ... a major upris­ing.” He isn’t as wor­ried about a Morsi vic­tory because Shafik sup­port­ers are unlikely to take their anger to the streets, he said.

He described the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion as “a total, com­plete 100 per­cent mess.”

Mus­lim Broth­er­hood law­mak­ers met with polit­i­cal lead­ers to dis­cuss plans for a coali­tion to fight what they believe is a power grab by the mil­i­tary, accord­ing to the Face­book page of its Free­dom and Jus­tice Party.

“We will NOT accept this coup against democ­racy,” it said, adding that “together, we will march on to com­plete the revolution.”

...

It’s offi­cial. Morsi takes it:

NY Times
For Islamists in Egypt, Morsi Vic­tory Is a Sym­bolic Win

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Pub­lished: June 24, 2012

CAIRO — Egypt’s mil­i­tary rulers on Sun­day offi­cially rec­og­nized Mohamed Morsi of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood as the win­ner of Egypt’s first com­pet­i­tive pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, hand­ing the Islamists both a sym­bolic tri­umph and a potent weapon in their strug­gle for power against the country’s senior generals.

Mr. Morsi, 60, an American-trained engi­neer and for­mer law­maker, is the first Islamist elected as head of an Arab state. But 16 months after the mil­i­tary took over at the ouster of Pres­i­dent Hosni Mubarak, Mr. Morsi’s vic­tory is an ambigu­ous mile­stone in Egypt’s promised tran­si­tion to democracy.

After a week of doubt, delays and fears of a coup since a pub­lic bal­lot count showed Mr. Morsi ahead, the gen­er­als have proven a mea­sure of respect for at least some core ele­ment elec­toral democ­racy — they have accepted a polit­i­cal oppo­nent over their ally, for­mer Gen­eral Ahmed Shafik, after a vote that inter­na­tional mon­i­tors called credible.

But Mr. Morsi’s recog­ni­tion as pres­i­dent does lit­tle to resolve the larger stand­off between the gen­er­als and the Broth­er­hood over the insti­tu­tions of gov­ern­ment and the future con­sti­tu­tion. With just two weeks to go until their promised exit from power by June 30, the gen­er­als instead shut down the demo­c­ra­t­i­cally elected and Islamist-led Par­lia­ment; took over its pow­ers to make laws and set bud­gets; decreed an interim con­sti­tu­tion strip­ping the new pres­i­dent of most of his power; and re-imposed mar­tial law by autho­riz­ing sol­diers to arrest civil­ians. And the gen­eral gave them­selves an effec­tive veto over pro­vi­sions of a planned per­ma­nent con­sti­tu­tion as well.

...

After 84 years as an often out­lawed secret soci­ety strug­gling in the pris­ons and shad­ows of mon­archs and dic­ta­tors, the Broth­er­hood is now closer than ever to its stated goal of build­ing an Islamist democ­racy in Egypt. “In my dreams I wanted this to hap­pen, but it is unbe­liev­able,” said Hudaida Has­san, a 20-year-old from Menoufiya.

Even in a vic­to­ri­ous moment, how­ever, the Brotherhood’s lead­er­ship acknowl­edged that the strug­gle was far from over: lead­ers imme­di­ately pledged to con­tinue the sit-in, fight­ing on in the courts and in the streets to restore the Par­lia­ment. And in his first state­ment as president-elect, Mr. Morsi vowed to swear the oath of office before the seated Par­lia­ment and not before the Supreme Con­sti­tu­tional Court as the gen­er­als had decreed.

Field Mar­shall Mohamed Hus­sein Tantawi, the chair­man of the mil­i­tary coun­cil, con­grat­u­lated Mr. Morsi. The Brotherhood’s polit­i­cal arm said on its Web site that the offi­cial pres­i­den­tial guard who pre­vi­ously pro­tected Mr. Mubarak had arrived at Mr. Morsi’s home to begin pro­tect­ing him. It was a stark con­trast from the days less than two years ago when the arrival of armed offi­cers at the home of a Broth­er­hood leader inevitably meant a trip to one of Mr. Mubarak’s jails.

Ful­fill­ing a cam­paign pledge to rep­re­sent all Egyp­tians, Mr. Morsi resigned from the Broth­er­hood and its polit­i­cal arm, the Free­dom and Jus­tice Party. State media reported Sun­day morn­ing that the prime min­is­ter and cab­i­net would resign imme­di­ately, mak­ing way for Mr. Morsi to appoint his own team. As the Broth­er­hood has reached out to rebuild alliances with lib­eral and other sec­u­lar activists for its con­test with the gen­er­als, Mr. Morsi has pledged to name a prime min­is­ter and other top offi­cials from out­side the Broth­er­hood as part of a unity government.

At the same time, how­ever, Mr. Morsi has always cam­paigned not as an indi­vid­ual with a vision of his own but rather as an execu­tor of the Brotherhood’s plat­form. He was the group’s sec­ond choice nom­i­nee, put for­ward after the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of the group’s lead strate­gist and most influ­en­tial leader, Khairat el-Shater, and Mr. Morsi has vowed to carry out the pro­gram Mr. Shater has spent more than a year devis­ing to reform and remake Egypt’s gov­ern­ment min­istries. Mr. Morsi and Mr. Shater have never effec­tively dis­pel accu­sa­tions that Mr. Shater would wield the true power in a Morsi government.

Even after the two-month pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, Mr. Morsi remains an unfa­mil­iar fig­ure to most Egyp­tians. He earned a doc­toral degree in mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­sity of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia in 1982 — putting him in the United States for the tumul­tuous years after Islamists assas­si­nated Pres­i­dent Anwar Sadat and Pres­i­dent Muabrak cracked down on the Brotherhood.

Those who knew him in Los Ange­les say Mr. Morsi never appeared notably polit­i­cal or reli­gious. But he returned to teach at Zagazig Uni­ver­sity in the Nile Delta, where he became a leader in the Broth­er­hood and even­tu­ally won of its first mem­bers of the Mubarak-dominated Parliament.

He was picked by higher-ups to lead the Brotherhood’s small par­lia­men­tary bloc, which then includ­ing just 18 mem­bers out of more than 500 law­mak­ers. He thus played a key role in the group’s first exper­i­ment in mul­ti­party elec­toral democ­racy and coali­tion build­ing. But in sub­se­quent years, as he was ele­vated to the Brotherhood’s gov­ern­ing board, he gained the rep­u­ta­tion as an inter­nal enforcer, known for dis­cour­ag­ing voices of dissent.

When the Broth­er­hood adopted a hypo­thet­i­cal draft party plat­form in 2007 that cited Islamic tenets as requir­ing that nei­ther a women nor a non-Muslim should be eli­gi­ble to be Egypt’s pres­i­dent, Mr. Morsi was a chief defender of those planks, inter­nally and externally.

Since Mr. Mubarak’s ouster, the Broth­er­hood has jet­ti­soned those posi­tions from its plat­form. But dur­ing the cam­paign, Mr. Morsi said that as a per­sonal mat­ter he still believed the pres­i­dency should go only to a male Muslim.

...

If you thought this roller coaster ride was com­ing to an end...you would be wrong. Loop-d-loops lie ahead:

Egypt’s leg­is­la­ture con­venes despite court ruling

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s Islamist-dominated par­lia­ment opened a new front in the country’s lead­er­ship show­downs Tues­day by meet­ing in defi­ance of orders that dis­banded the cham­ber and brought Pres­i­dent Mohammed Morsi in con­flict with both the pow­er­ful mil­i­tary and the high­est court.

The ses­sion was brief — last­ing just five min­utes — and sug­gested that law­mak­ers sought more of a sym­bolic stance rather than a full-scale back­lash against rul­ings that inval­i­dated the cham­ber over appar­ent irreg­u­lar­i­ties in Egypt’s first elec­tions since the fall of Hosni Mubarak 17 months ago.

But it fur­ther nudged Egypt deeper into a poten­tial power strug­gle between Morsi and mil­i­tary chiefs, who have vowed to uphold the judi­cial rul­ing that led to par­lia­ment being dis­solved last month.

For the moment, all sides appear to be mov­ing with some cau­tion in acknowl­edg­ment of Egypt’s volatile back­drop: The mil­i­tary with the power to clamp down on dis­sent but with­out wide­spread sup­port on the streets where Morsi’s Mus­lim Broth­er­hood is strong.

Secu­rity forces made no attempt to block law­mak­ers as they arrived at the par­lia­ment build­ing in cen­tral Cairo.

In the back­ground, mean­while, a spe­cial panel is work­ing on Egypt’s post-Mubarak con­sti­tu­tion and an all-out bat­tle between the ris­ing Broth­er­hood and the country’s old guard estab­lish­ment could send the entire process into a tailspin.

The cri­sis atmos­phere has grown steadily since Morsi issued an order Sun­day to recon­vene the 508-seat leg­is­la­ture. His exec­u­tive order said it was revok­ing the military’s June 15 order to dis­band the cham­ber based on the pre­vi­ous rul­ing by the Supreme Con­sti­tu­tional Court.

The court said a third of the chamber’s mem­bers were elected ille­gally by allow­ing can­di­dates from polit­i­cal par­ties to con­test seats set aside for inde­pen­dent can­di­dates. The court was expected to rule later Tues­day on three cases ques­tion­ing the legal­ity of the president’s order. A lower court also look­ing into com­plaints against Morsi’s order post­poned its deci­sion until July 17.

Morsi’s pres­i­den­tial decree also called for new par­lia­men­tary elec­tions after a new con­sti­tu­tion is adopted, which is not expected before the end of the year. In effect, it puts the cur­rent par­lia­ment in a sort of care­taker sta­tus — rais­ing fur­ther spec­u­la­tion that Morsi could be buy­ing time with the cur­rent defiance.

The dis­pute over the fate of par­lia­ment has divided the nation just as Egyp­tians hoped for a sem­blance of sta­bil­ity after the tumult since the Arab Spring ouster of Mubarak. Egypt has seen a dra­matic surge in crime, deadly street protests, a fal­ter­ing econ­omy and seem­ingly non-stop strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations.

...

Lots of loop-d-loops.

A ‘civil­ian counter-coup’ coor­di­nated with an inter­nal putsch. That sounds like a done deal:

Egypt pres­i­dent sweeps out army rulers

By Edmund Blair

CAIRO | Mon Aug 13, 2012 11:00am EDT

(Reuters) — Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Mohamed Mursi has dri­ven back the biggest chal­lenge to civil­ian rule by dis­miss­ing top gen­er­als and tear­ing up their legal attempt to curb his power in a bold bid to end 60 years of mil­i­tary leadership.

Tak­ing the coun­try by sur­prise, Mursi pushed Field Mar­shal Hus­sein Tantawi into retire­ment. The 76-year-old fig­ure­head of the old order, he took charge of the biggest Arab nation when Hosni Mubarak fell last year and remained head of its pow­er­ful, ad hoc mil­i­tary coun­cil after the Islamist was elected in June.

The armed forces, which had sup­plied Egypt’s pres­i­dents for six decades after oust­ing the monar­chy, have shown no sign of chal­leng­ing the move announced late on Sun­day, though a senior judge did speak up on Mon­day to ques­tion Mursi’s right to act.

Lower-ranking gen­er­als and other offi­cers may, how­ever, sup­port a change that shifts power in the mil­i­tary to a new gen­er­a­tion. One ana­lyst said Mursi mounted a “civil­ian counter-coup” coor­di­nated with an inter­nal putsch in the armed forces.

State media cited a mil­i­tary source dis­miss­ing talk of any “neg­a­tive reac­tions” by the gen­er­als to a deci­sion which, given their ear­lier dis­so­lu­tion of par­lia­ment, now hands Mursi what lib­eral critic Mohamed ElBa­radei described as “impe­r­ial powers”.

Mursi and his long-suppressed Mus­lim Broth­er­hood had been expected to roll back the influ­ence of the army, a close ally of Wash­ing­ton and recip­i­ent of $1.3 bil­lion in annual U.S. mil­i­tary aid; but many had pre­dicted a process that would take years of del­i­cate diplo­macy to avoid spark­ing a mil­i­tary backlash.

Instead, just six weeks after he was sworn into office and seem­ingly tak­ing advan­tage of a mil­i­tary deba­cle on the Sinai bor­der that embar­rassed the army, Mursi announced sweep­ing changes in the high com­mand and reshaped Egypt’s politics.

“Mursi set­tles the strug­gle for power,” said a head­line in the state-owned Al-Akhbar daily, a news­pa­per that is tra­di­tion­ally a mouth­piece for the army-backed establishment.

“Mursi ends the polit­i­cal role for the armed forces,” wrote the inde­pen­dent Al-Masry Al-Youm. Another, Tahrir, called it the “president’s rev­o­lu­tion against the military”.

...

Well that didn’t take long:

Egypt’s Islamist pres­i­dent now has pow­ers that rival author­i­tar­ian pre­de­ces­sor Mubarak

By Asso­ci­ated Press, Updated: Tues­day, August 14, 3:34 PM

CAIRO — Egypt’s Islamist pres­i­dent has given him­self the right to leg­is­late and con­trol over the draft­ing of a new con­sti­tu­tion. He has installed at the top of the pow­er­ful mil­i­tary a defense min­is­ter likely to be beholden to him.

Under Mohammed Morsi’s author­ity, offi­cials have moved to silence influ­en­tial crit­ics in the media. And though a civil­ian, he declared him­self in charge of mil­i­tary oper­a­tions against mil­i­tants in the Sinai peninsula.

Over the week­end, Morsi ordered the retire­ment of the defense min­is­ter and chief of staff and reclaimed key pow­ers the mil­i­tary seized from him days before he took office on June 30. With that, Egypt’s first freely elected pres­i­dent amassed in his own hands pow­ers that rival those of his ousted author­i­tar­ian pre­de­ces­sor, Hosni Mubarak.

If left unchecked, there are fears Morsi and his fun­da­men­tal­ist group, the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, could turn the clock back on the country’s tumul­tuous shift to demo­c­ra­tic rule and pur­sue their goal of some­day turn­ing the most pop­u­lous Arab nation into an Islamic state.

The Broth­er­hood already won both par­lia­men­tary and pres­i­den­tial elec­tions after the upris­ing last year that forced Mubarak out. The ques­tion now is whether there is any insti­tu­tion in the coun­try that can check the power of Morsi and the Broth­er­hood and stop them from tak­ing over the nation’s insti­tu­tions and con­sol­i­dat­ing their grip.

“Are we look­ing at a pres­i­dent deter­mined to dis­man­tle the machine of tyranny ... or one who is retool­ing the machine of tyranny to serve his inter­ests, remov­ing the military’s hold on the state so he can lay the foun­da­tions for the author­ity of the Broth­er­hood?” promi­nent rights activist and best-selling nov­el­ist Alaa al-Aswani wrote in an arti­cle pub­lished Tues­day in an inde­pen­dent daily.

“He must cor­rect these mis­takes and assure us through actions that he is a pres­i­dent of all Egyp­tians,” wrote the sec­u­lar al-Aswani before warn­ing that Egyp­tians will never allow Morsi to turn Egypt into a “Broth­er­hood state.”

Nobel Peace Prize lau­re­ate Mohamed ElBa­radei, the country’s top reform leader, issued a sim­i­lar warn­ing on Mon­day. After Morsi stripped the mil­i­tary of leg­isla­tive author­ity, and in the absence of par­lia­ment, he cau­tioned that the pres­i­dent holds “impe­r­ial powers.”

...

Now Morsi is in effect both the exec­u­tive and leg­isla­tive branches com­bined. And his back­ers are show­ing some tell-tale signs of wield­ing power unchecked.

Last week, Broth­er­hood mem­bers of parliament’s upper house named 50 new edi­tors of state-owned pub­li­ca­tions, many of them known to be sym­pa­thetic to the group. The move tight­ened the Brotherhood’s stran­gle­hold on the media after one of its mem­bers took over the Infor­ma­tion Min­istry in a newly appointed Cab­i­net backed by the group and led by a devout Muslim.

Morsi and the Broth­er­hood remained silent when a mob of sup­port­ers attacked a media com­plex in a Cairo sub­urb, smash­ing offices and cars to pun­ish crit­ics of the pres­i­dent. Sup­port­ers also intim­i­date and some­times scuf­fle with pro­test­ers out­side the pres­i­den­tial palace.

And though he is a civil­ian, the pres­i­dent declared him­self to be run­ning mil­i­tary oper­a­tions against rad­i­cal Mus­lims in Sinai after sus­pected mil­i­tants killed 16 Egypt­ian sol­diers on the bor­der with Israel on Aug. 5.

Morsi, accord­ing to insid­ers, is expected to press ahead with efforts to expand the Brotherhood’s control.

...

Just a quick update...Morsi has now acquired “super pow­ers”:

Egypt pres­i­dent names mainly Islamist adviser team

By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Asso­ci­ated Press – 22 hours ago

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s Islamist pres­i­dent Mohammed Morsi on Mon­day named a team of 21 advis­ers and aides that includes three women and two Chris­tians and a large num­ber of Islamist-leaning fig­ures, back­ing off cam­paign promises to appoint a Chris­t­ian and a woman as vice presidents.

The move is the lat­est by Morsi, a long­time mem­ber of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood who was inau­gu­rated in late June, to estab­lish his author­ity and break with the era of ousted Pres­i­dent Hosni Mubarak by form­ing his own leadership.

Morsi’s office has sought to depict him as inde­pen­dent of the Broth­er­hood and as a leader who wants to bring a wider polit­i­cal spec­trum behind him, includ­ing lib­er­als — but the Broth­er­hood still holds the pre­pon­der­ance of power in his administration.

In midst of a fierce pres­i­den­tial elec­tion cam­paign ear­lier this year, Morsi sought to broaden his sup­port and allay fears of Broth­er­hood dom­i­nance by promis­ing to appoint a youth, a woman and a Chris­t­ian to vice pres­i­dent posts. The promise brought an out­cry from ultra­con­ser­v­a­tive Islamists known as Salafis who said they would not accept a Chris­t­ian or woman vice pres­i­dent, since they say nei­ther is allowed to serve as head of state.

Since Morsi’s inau­gu­ra­tion, some Broth­er­hood offi­cials have con­tended he was forced into the promises, sig­nal­ing that he would likely back down. Ear­lier this month, Morsi appointed a senior judge, Mah­moud Mekki, as vice pres­i­dent. When asked, Morsi’s spokesman Yasser Ali told reporters that there will be only one vice pres­i­dent for the time being.

Instead, Ali on Mon­day announced the for­ma­tion of Morsi’s “pres­i­den­tial team,” which includes four senior aides and a 17-member coun­cil of advis­ers, which includes seven fig­ures seen as polit­i­cal lib­er­als and 10 who have Islamist lean­ings of var­i­ous degrees.

The rolling back of the promises reflects Morsi’s grow­ing con­fi­dence as a pres­i­dent who holds “super pow­ers” exceed­ing those of his pre­de­ces­sors, said Nabil Abdel-Fatah, a scholar with Al Ahram Cen­ter for Polit­i­cal and Strate­gic Stud­ies. Morsi holds both exec­u­tive power and leg­isla­tive author­ity after he side­lined the top mil­i­tary gen­er­als who ruled Egypt after Mubarak’s ouster on Feb. 11. 2011. The gen­er­als had dis­solved par­lia­ment and taken on leg­isla­tive pow­ers, so when they were side­lined, Morsi seized the power to make laws — a power he has used once so far.

“The announce­ment of the new team has noth­ing to do with the promises Morsi made before,” said Abdel-Fatah. “Those chose will pose no chal­lenge to the pres­i­dent ... this is only for cos­metic purposes.”

Abdel-Fatah said the appoint­ments sug­gested Morsi does not want to share pow­ers with a vice pres­i­dent. “This is just another sign that we are head­ing to a dead­lock with the Broth­er­hood insist­ing on monop­o­liz­ing power,” he said.

...

Here’s an update on the ever evolv­ing Egypt­ian polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion: We just passed the 100 day marker of Mohammed Morsi’s term and the reviews are not exactly sup­port­ive:

Egypt’s lib­er­als, Islamists clash, 110 reported injured

By Yas­mine Saleh and Marwa Awad

CAIRO | Fri Oct 12, 2012 7:45pm EDT

(Reuters) — Oppo­nents and sup­port­ers of Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Mohamed Mursi clashed in Cairo on Fri­day in the first street vio­lence between rival fac­tions since the Islamist leader took office.

Islamists and their oppo­nents threw stones, bot­tles and petrol bombs, and some fought hand-to-hand, show­ing how feel­ings still run high between the rival groups try­ing to shape the new Egypt after decades of autoc­racy, although the streets have gen­er­ally been calmer since Mursi’s elec­tion in June.

The Health Min­istry said 110 peo­ple had sus­tained light to mod­er­ate injuries, state media reported.

A gov­ern­ment is in place, but Islamists and lib­er­als are at log­ger­heads over the draft­ing of the new con­sti­tu­tion, which must be agreed before a new par­lia­ment can be elected.

...

BUSES SET ON FIRE

Some demon­stra­tors pulled down a tem­po­rary podium that had been erected on a side of the square for speeches. Later, Islamists took over the square, trig­ger­ing scuf­fles in nearby streets as they tried to keep rival groups out.

Two buses parked near the square were set alight. Wit­nesses said they had been used by the Broth­er­hood to bring in supporters.

The Brotherhood’s Free­dom and Jus­tice Party (FJP) in a state­ment expressed its “sor­row” over what hap­pened to the buses it said were used to bring mem­bers to Cairo. It also con­demned an attack on the Brotherhood’s head­quar­ters in the indus­trial city of El-Mahalla El-Kubra.

“We went to protest against the con­stituent assem­bly and Mursi’s fail­ure in his 100 days, and Islamists pre­vented us and are now con­trol­ling the square,” said Islam Wagdy, 19, a mem­ber of a group set up by left­ist politi­cian Hamdeen Sabahy.

An FJP spokesman denied this. “What hap­pened today was an attempt by the lib­eral pow­ers ... to pre­vent Islamists express­ing their views and protest­ing in Tahrir, which belongs to all Egyp­tians and not to a cer­tain cur­rent,” Ahmed Sobeih said.

There was no inter­ven­tion by police, who have often been the tar­get of pro­test­ers’ anger because of their bru­tal­ity against demon­stra­tors in last year’s revolt.

The Broth­er­hood, which joined Friday’s protest, had said it should focus on this week’s court ruling.

The charge by men on camels and horse­back was one of the most vio­lent inci­dents of the upris­ing that ousted Mubarak in Feb­ru­ary 2011. The case has been closely watched by those seek­ing jus­tice for the hun­dreds killed in the revolt.

The court acquit­ted top Mubarak-era offi­cials such as for­mer lower house speaker Fathi Sorour and Mubarak aide Safwat Sherif, both of whom are scorned by many Egyptians.

...

In an appar­ent bid to appease the pub­lic, the pres­i­dent had said late on Thurs­day he was mov­ing Abdel Maguid Mah­moud out of that posi­tion to make him ambas­sador to the Vat­i­can, because Egypt­ian law pre­vented him being dismissed.

Mah­moud denounced the move and told Egypt­ian media he would stay on. The influ­en­tial judges’ club con­demned the deci­sion as inter­fer­ence and called for a meet­ing of judi­cial offi­cials on Sun­day to dis­cuss action, the state news agency reported.

Even some polit­i­cal groups who wanted Mah­moud out ques­tioned the way Mursi had done it. The lib­eral Free Egyp­tians Party said chang­ing the pros­e­cu­tor should be an inde­pen­dent judi­cial move.

...

First off, it turns out that this entire time we all thought Morsi was sup­posed to be the “uncharis­matic” B-team stand-in for Kharait el-Shater but he’s actu­ally the mas­ter of the dead­pan deliv­ery. Mak­ing the Vat­i­can ambas­sador­ship the “pun­ish­ment” assign­ment for chief pros­e­cu­tor Abdel Maguid Mah­houd? Ha! He couldn’t “fire” Abdel so he sends him to purgatory....at the Vat­i­can. And totally dead­panned. Clas­sic! He’s chan­nel­ing Kauf­man(get well soon Jerry). Sure, Morsi ended up back­ing down on the reas­sign­ment threat, but that whole skit still showed potential.

Sec­ondly, and as evi­denced by the burn­ing buses and gen­eral may­hem, the cre­ation and rat­i­fi­ca­tion of the new Egypt­ian con­sti­tu­tion is going to con­tinue to be a BIG issue going for­ward. It an his­toric step into a per­ma­nent post-military-rule era that requires enor­mous com­pro­mise from all par­ties across Egypt’s new multi-polar polit­i­cal spec­trum. The new con­sti­tu­tion is also guar­an­teed to be highly con­tro­ver­sial since there appears to be a Mus­lim Brotherhood/Salafist attempt to use this his­toric oppor­tu­nity to offi­cially enshrine the Mus­lim Brotherhood’s/Salafist’s reli­gious pet peeves into Egypt’s civil­ian life. Per­ma­nently. Burn­ing buses cer­tainly isn’t/aren’t good. Nei­ther is ambigu­ously applic­a­ble con­ju­ga­tion. Or theoc­racy:

Lib­er­als strug­gling to pre­vent Islamist dom­i­na­tion in writ­ing of Egypt’s new con­sti­tu­tion
By Asso­ci­ated Press,

CAIRO — Islamists are seek­ing to enshrine in Egypt’s long-awaited new con­sti­tu­tion a num­ber of arti­cles that sec­u­lar­ists and lib­er­als fear would bring theo­cratic rule and severely set back civil lib­er­ties, includ­ing pro­vi­sions that could empower cler­ics to review laws and would stip­u­late that women’s rights can­not vio­late Shariah law or “fam­ily duties.”

Lib­er­als and sec­u­lar­ists have been strug­gling to keep out the pro­vi­sions, but are find­ing them­selves out­num­bered and vul­ner­a­ble to being over­ruled on the 100-member assem­bly that is writ­ing the char­ter meant to set the path for post-revolution Egypt.

The assem­bly, where Islamists hold a major­ity, has been debat­ing the con­sti­tu­tion over nearly 50 ses­sions dur­ing the past months. But the wran­gling has heated up as the body gets closer to vot­ing on a final draft, which would then be put to a yes-or-no ref­er­en­dum by the pub­lic, expected by the end of the year. Lib­er­als, how­ever, say they have few tools to block Islamists’ demands other than walk­ing out of the assem­bly — a step they have wavered on tak­ing for fear or los­ing their voice entirely.

Around 100 women protested against the Islamists’ pro­vi­sions Tues­day out­side the upper house of par­lia­ment, where the assem­bly has been hold­ing its ses­sions. They chanted against a “reli­gious state” and shouted, “Down with the rule of the Brotherhood.”

Magda Adly, one rights activist at the gath­er­ing, warned of “a con­sti­tu­tion that only sees women as tasked to make babies,” say­ing the Islamists’ pro­vi­sions would open the door to dra­mat­i­cally low­er­ing the mar­riage age for women and end­ing restric­tions on female gen­i­tal mutilation.

Bat­tles also spilled into the court­room Tues­day as a Cairo court con­vened to exam­ine nearly 40 suits call­ing for the assem­bly to be dis­banded. Lawyers from the two sides pushed and shoved each other in shout­ing matches that forced the judges to post­pone the hear­ing for a week. If the court even­tu­ally orders the assem­bly dis­banded, Islamist Pres­i­dent Mohammed Morsi would form the new one, and lib­er­als’ have lit­tle faith it would be any more favor­able to them.

The con­sti­tu­tion has been long awaited as a key step in estab­lish­ing a democ­racy in Egypt after last year’s ouster of auto­cratic ruler Hosni Mubarak. The upris­ing that forced Mubarak out was led by pro­gres­sive, sec­u­lar activists who ral­lied pub­lic anger over wors­en­ing poverty, the monop­oly on power by Mubarak’s rul­ing party, ram­pant cor­rup­tion and wide­spread abuses by secu­rity and intel­li­gence agencies.

But in the nearly 20 months since, Islamists have emerged as the strongest polit­i­cal power. Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected pres­i­dent, is a vet­eran fig­ure from the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, which dom­i­nated par­lia­men­tary elec­tions last year. Also pow­er­ful are the ultra­con­ser­v­a­tive Salafis, who call for an even stricter imple­men­ta­tion of Islamic Shariah law than the Brotherhood.

...

Some parts of the new char­ter that appear to have con­sen­sus so far would set a more demo­c­ra­tic sys­tem for Egypt, reduc­ing the over­whelm­ing pow­ers that the pres­i­dent has long held and increas­ing the author­i­ties of parliament.

But a num­ber of arti­cles put for­ward by Islamists have raised lib­er­als’ con­cerns.

One pro­posal would estab­lish a pow­er­ful polit­i­cal role for Egypt’s pre­mier Islamic insti­tu­tion, Al-Azhar, say­ing the opin­ion of its top cler­ics would be “the final or main ref­er­ence for the state in what­ever is related to Shariah law.” Some fear that would estab­lish an Iranian-style sys­tem where cler­ics over­see laws passed by par­lia­ment. Al-Azhar is gen­er­ally seen as a mod­er­ate body, but con­ser­v­a­tives and Salafis have been gain­ing influ­ence in its ranks.

“Islamists will con­tinue to rule the coun­try through this insti­tu­tion (Al-Azhar) even if they lose elec­tions,” the National Front For Jus­tice and Democ­racy, an inde­pen­dent group mon­i­tor­ing the assembly’s delib­er­a­tions, said in a recent report.

There has been a sharp debate over revis­ing the sec­ond arti­cle of the pre­vi­ous con­sti­tu­tion which says the “prin­ci­ples of Shariah” are the main source of leg­is­la­tion. Many Islamists see that lan­guage as too vague and want it changed to “the rul­ings of Shariah,” which they see as pro­vid­ing for a more strict adher­ence to their inter­pre­ta­tion of Islamic law.

In other Islamist-backed arti­cles, women would enjoy equal rights as men as long as they do not “vio­late Shariah” or “fam­ily duties.” Islamists also blocked attempts to intro­duce a clause guar­an­tee­ing Egypt’s adher­ence to inter­na­tional treaties it has already joined on end­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion against women. They wor­ried that such a clause could be used to ban female gen­i­tal muti­la­tion or pre­vent low­er­ing of the mar­riage age, which they saw are allowed under Shariah. Some Salafi sheiks have called for allow­ing girls to be mar­ried with the onset of puberty.

Another pro­posed clause would stip­u­late that Chris­tians and Jews have the right to abide by their “own reli­gious laws” and choose “their reli­gious lead­er­ship,” a pro­vi­sion that Islamists say pro­tects minori­ties. Crit­ics say it con­tra­dicts the prin­ci­ples of equal cit­i­zen­ship and enshrines a second-class status.

Another arti­cle would rec­og­nize the right of Chris­tians and Jews to con­duct their rit­u­als and build places of wor­ship, but on the con­di­tion they do not “vio­late pub­lic order.” That could allow law­mak­ers to main­tain restric­tions on the build­ing of churches, since church con­struc­tion has often prompted sec­tar­ian strife in the past.

Other clauses are heavy with vague ref­er­ences to pre­serv­ing the “morals” and “tra­di­tions” of Egypt­ian soci­ety, which crit­ics fear could be used to restrict free­doms of speech and polit­i­cal activity.

“This is a dis­as­ter,” said left­ist politi­cian Hus­sein Abdel-Razek. “The pro­posed arti­cles reflect the core of polit­i­cal Islam cur­rents like the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and Salafis. They are auto­cratic and repres­sive at heart.”

Nehad Aboul-Qomsan, head of the Egypt­ian Cen­ter for Women rights, raised a warn­ing over the rights women won over the years, say­ing, “We are los­ing them now.”

...

As a regional leader, Egypt is one of those coun­tries that’s big­ger than itself so Egypt’s new con­sti­tu­tion is a huge deal glob­ally because we all need Egypt’s neigh­bor­hood to get on track ASAP. Egypt just spent 30+ years under mil­i­tary rule and has enough urgent prob­lems on its own, it doesn’t need to spend the next three decades wal­low­ing under the rule of power-hungry Islamists. So it’s quite a pleas­ant turn of events for the global com­mu­nity that the cur­rent crop of Egypt­ian youths that are up to the task of mak­ing a real viable future for the coun­try. But that viable future for Egypt’s assumes folks like Morsi don’t muck up Egypt’s con­sti­tu­tion with a per­ma­nent MB-veto. Given their sig­nif­i­cant orga­ni­za­tional advan­tages at the moment, the MB will prob­a­bly be able to engage in quite a bit of con­sti­tu­tional muck­ing dur­ing this first round. But it’s impor­tant to keep in mind that we’re still in the early stages of Egypt’s post-Mubarak future. It’s going to be very inter­est­ing to watch this gen­er­a­tion of young Egyp­tians going for­ward because if Morsi’s “first 100 days” reviews are any indi­ca­tion of what to expect, the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood short-term “youth prob­lem” could turn into a long-term “most of Egypt’s adults prob­lem”. And then there’s the cur­rent prob­lem with the chief pros­e­cu­tor, Mr. Mah­moud. The one that wasn’t sent to pur­ga­tory at the Vat­i­can. He’s still the chief pros­e­cu­tor:

Bloomberg
Egypt Broth­er­hood Offi­cials Inves­ti­gated Over Protest Clashes
By Salma El War­dany and Ahmed El-Sayed on Octo­ber 15, 2012

Egypt­ian Prosecutor-General Abdel– Meguid Mah­moud has ordered an inves­ti­ga­tion into alle­ga­tions two top Mus­lim Broth­er­hood offi­cials incited attacks on women dur­ing a Cairo protest last week, his office said.

The inves­ti­ga­tion of Mohamed El-Beltagy and Essam El-Erian stemmed from Oct. 12 clashes between sec­u­lar groups and mem­bers of the Brotherhood’s polit­i­cal party that left over 140 injured. The inci­dent under­scored the ten­sions that have built up between Islamists back­ing Pres­i­dent Mohamed Mursi and sec­u­lar­ists who have grown increas­ingly wor­ried about the Islamists’ hold on government.

Mahmoud’s order comes days after he defied Mursi’s attempt to remove him from office, a move crit­i­cized by the judi­ciary as an attempt by the pres­i­dent to encroach on their inde­pen­dence and author­ity. Mursi later said Mah­moud would remain in his post instead of being sent off as Egypt’s ambas­sador to the Vatican.

...

The com­plaints were filed with Mahmoud’s office by at least one female activist who alleged the Broth­er­hood sup­port­ers attacked women at the demon­stra­tion.

The clashes occurred as the Broth­er­hood orga­nized a protest against the acquit­tal of sev­eral top offi­cials from ousted Pres­i­dent Hosni Mubarak’s gov­ern­ment on charges of involve­ment in the so-called “Bat­tle of the Camel,” in which pro­test­ers were killed dur­ing last year’s revolt. Sep­a­rately, other groups protested both the acquit­tals and Mursi’s rule.

Yep. Lot’s of long-term prob­lems for the MB and Salafists. Win­ning hearts and minds can be dif­fi­cult when you lack both. Even when you learn from the best.

Sweet sweet unchecked power. It’s good to be the king pres­i­dent:

Egypt’s Morsy gives him­self new pow­ers, orders retri­als in pro­tester deaths
From Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, CNN
updated 6:32 PM EST, Thu Novem­ber 22, 2012

(CNN) — Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Mohamed Morsy has issued an order pre­vent­ing any court from over­turn­ing his deci­sions, essen­tially allow­ing him to run the coun­try unchecked until a new con­sti­tu­tion is drafted, his spokesman announced on state TV Thursday.

...

Polit­i­cal rivals also expressed dis­may Thurs­day evening.

“Morsy is tak­ing over the exec­u­tive, judi­cial, and leg­isla­tive pow­ers in his hands, and this is a dan­ger­ous path,” said the Twit­ter account of Hamdeen Sabahy, a for­mer pres­i­den­tial candidate.

“Morsy has issued immu­nity to any laws he issues. This is the birth of a new dic­ta­tor,” tweeted Khaled Ali, another for­mer pres­i­den­tial candidate.

Hun­dreds of Mus­lim Broth­er­hood sup­port­ers, mean­while, stood out­side the gen­eral prosecutor’s office Thurs­day to sup­port Morsy’s decrees.

Morsy declared that any laws or decrees he’s made since he took office June 30, and until a new con­sti­tu­tion is put in place, are final and can­not be over­turned or appealed, his spokesman said on state-run TV.

Morsy also declared that a 100-man coun­cil draft­ing a new con­sti­tu­tion, plus the upper house of par­lia­ment, can­not be dis­solved. And he granted the coun­cil two more months to fin­ish a draft con­sti­tu­tion, mean­ing the panel has six months to finish.

That means Morsy, who ear­lier this year took over leg­isla­tive pow­ers from the mil­i­tary coun­cil that ruled after Mubarak’s ouster, could have at least six months of unchecked rule by decree. The draft con­sti­tu­tion would go to a ref­er­en­dum before it is finalized.

He also fired Egypt’s gen­eral pros­e­cu­tor, who had taken crit­i­cism from pro­test­ers in recent months because they believe pros­e­cu­tions over demon­stra­tors’ deaths were insuf­fi­cient. Morsy swore in Talaat Ibrahim as the new gen­eral pros­e­cu­tor on Thursday.

Morsy’s moves come three days after the start of vio­lent protests in cen­tral Cairo, largely by peo­ple angry at Morsy’s gov­ern­ment and the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, the Islamist move­ment to which Morsy belongs. They also come amid tur­moil in the con­sti­tu­tion panel, which has been torn between con­ser­v­a­tives want­ing the con­sti­tu­tion to man­date Egypt be gov­erned by Islam’s Sharia law, and mod­er­ates and lib­er­als who want it to say that Egypt be gov­erned by prin­ci­ples of Sharia.

The announce­ments also come a day after Morsy helped bro­ker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas after an eight-day con­flict between the sides.

...

It’s look­ing more and more like Egypt might be in for another rev­o­lu­tion. Morsi is refus­ing to back down on his power grab while simul­ta­ne­ously call­ing for ‘dia­logue’ with oppo­si­tion so they could plan together on how to move Egypt for­ward after the con­sti­tu­tion is rat­i­fied. And the oppo­si­tion does not appear to be inter­ested in more ‘dia­logue’ with Morsi:

Pro­test­ers surge around Egypt’s pres­i­den­tial palace
By Edmund Blair and Yas­mine Saleh

CAIRO | Fri Dec 7, 2012 2:13pm EST

(Reuters) — Tens of thou­sands of Egypt­ian pro­test­ers surged around Pres­i­dent Mohamed Mursi’s palace in Cairo on Fri­day after break­ing through barbed wire bar­ri­cades and climb­ing onto army tanks guard­ing the premises.

“The peo­ple want the down­fall of the regime” and “Leave, leave,” they chanted, using slo­gans used in the upris­ing that top­pled Mursi’s pre­de­ces­sor Hosni Mubarak in Feb­ru­ary 2011.

Oppo­si­tion lead­ers ear­lier rejected a national dia­logue pro­posed by the Islamist pres­i­dent as a way out of a cri­sis that has polar­ized the nation and pro­voked deadly street clashes.

Elite Repub­li­can Guard units had ringed the palace with tanks and barbed wire on Thurs­day after a night of vio­lence between Islamist sup­port­ers of Mursi and their oppo­nents, in which seven peo­ple were killed and 350 wounded.

Islamists, who had obeyed a mil­i­tary order for demon­stra­tors to leave the palace envi­rons, held funer­als on Fri­day at Cairo’s al-Azhar mosque for six Mursi par­ti­sans who were among the dead. “With our blood and souls, we sac­ri­fice to Islam,” they chanted.

Mursi had offered few con­ces­sions in a speech late on Thurs­day, refus­ing to retract a Novem­ber 22 decree in which he assumed sweep­ing pow­ers or can­cel a ref­er­en­dum next week on a con­sti­tu­tion newly drafted by an Islamist-dominated assembly.

Instead, he called for a dia­logue at his office on Sat­ur­day to chart a way for­ward for Egypt after the ref­er­en­dum, an idea that lib­eral, left­ist and other oppo­si­tion lead­ers rebuffed.

They have demanded that Mursi rescind the decree in which he tem­porar­ily shielded his deci­sions from judi­cial review and that he post­pone the Decem­ber 15 ref­er­en­dum before any talks begin.

A leader of the main oppo­si­tion coali­tion said it would not join Mursi’s dia­logue: “The National Sal­va­tion Front is not tak­ing part in the dia­logue,” said Ahmed Said, a leader of the coali­tion, who also heads the lib­eral Free Egyp­tians Party.

The Front’s coor­di­na­tor, Mohamed ElBa­radei, a Nobel peace lau­re­ate, urged “national forces” to shun what he called an offer based on “arm-twisting and impo­si­tion of a fait accompli”.

Murad Ali, spokesman of the Brotherhood’s Free­dom and Jus­tice Party (FJP), said oppo­si­tion reac­tions were sad: “What exit to this cri­sis do they have other than dia­logue?” he asked.

Mursi’s decree giv­ing him­self extra pow­ers sparked the worst polit­i­cal cri­sis since he took office in June and set off renewed unrest that is dim­ming Egypt’s hopes of sta­bil­ity and eco­nomic recov­ery after nearly two years of tur­moil fol­low­ing the over­throw of Mubarak, a military-backed strongman.

The tur­moil has exposed con­trast­ing visions for Egypt, one held by Islamists, who were sup­pressed for decades by the army, and another by their rivals, who fear reli­gious con­ser­v­a­tives want to squeeze out other voices and restrict social freedoms.

Caught in the mid­dle are many of Egypt’s 83 mil­lion peo­ple who are des­per­ate for an end to polit­i­cal tur­bu­lence threat­en­ing their pre­car­i­ous liveli­hoods in an econ­omy under severe strain.

“We are so tired, by God,” said Mohamed Ali, a laborer. “I did not vote for Mursi nor any­one else. I only care about bring­ing food to my fam­ily, but I haven’t had work for a week.“
...

@Pterrafractyl: Thanks for cov­er­ing this on here! Peo­ple needed to hear this, I think. At least there’s some hope that the MB’s moves to secure ulti­mate power in that coun­try will back­fire on them.....we can only hope, anyway. =)

It was another whirl­wind day for Egypt’s cri­sis. First, we get reports that Morsi is plan­ning on declar­ing mar­tial law and call­ing in the mil­i­tary:

Morsi Is Seen on a Path to Impos­ing Mar­tial Law in Egypt

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Pub­lished: Decem­ber 8, 2012

CAIRO — Strug­gling to quell street protests and polit­i­cal vio­lence, Pres­i­dent Mohamed Morsi is mov­ing to impose a ver­sion of mar­tial law by call­ing on the armed forces to keep order and autho­riz­ing sol­diers to arrest civil­ians, Egypt­ian state media announced Saturday.

If Mr. Morsi goes through with the plan, it would rep­re­sent a his­toric role rever­sal. For decades, Egypt’s military-backed author­i­tar­ian pres­i­dents had used mar­tial law to hold on to power and to pun­ish Islamists like Mr. Morsi, who spent months in jail under a sim­i­lar decree.

A turn back to the mil­i­tary would also come just four months after Mr. Morsi man­aged to pry polit­i­cal power out of the hands of the country’s pow­er­ful gen­er­als, who led a tran­si­tional gov­ern­ment after the ouster of the long­time strong­man Hosni Mubarak.

The flag­ship state news­pa­per Al Ahram reported that Mr. Morsi “will soon issue a deci­sion for the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the armed forces in the duties of main­tain­ing secu­rity and pro­tec­tion of vital state insti­tu­tions.” The mil­i­tary would main­tain its expanded role until the com­ple­tion of a ref­er­en­dum on a draft con­sti­tu­tion next Sat­ur­day and the elec­tion of a new Par­lia­ment expected two months after that.

...

Mr. Morsi has not yet for­mally issued the order reported in Al Ahram, rais­ing the pos­si­bil­ity that the news­pa­per announce­ment was intended as a warn­ing to his oppo­nents. Although the plan would not fully sus­pend the civil law, it would nonethe­less have the effect of sus­pend­ing legal rights by empow­er­ing sol­diers under the con­trol of the defense min­is­ter to try civil­ians in mil­i­tary courts.

...

Moataz Abdel-Fattah, a for­mer adviser to Egypt’s tran­si­tional prime min­is­ter who is close to Defense Min­is­ter Abdul Fat­tah el-Sisi, sug­gested that the gen­er­als might have prompted Mr. Morsi to announce the pos­si­bil­ity of mar­tial law as a warn­ing to all the polit­i­cal fac­tions to end the crisis.

“The mil­i­tary is say­ing, ‘Do not let things get so bad that we have to inter­vene,’ ” Mr. Abdel-Fattah said. “In the short term it is good for Pres­i­dent Morsi, but in the long run they are also say­ing, ‘We belong to the peo­ple, and not Mr. Morsi or his opponents.’ ”

The military’s return to the streets at Mr. Morsi’s request would be a turn of events that was almost unimag­in­able when he took office in June.

The top gen­er­als had pushed for months to main­tain a role in Egypt­ian pol­i­tics and to limit the president’s pow­ers — in part, their sup­port­ers argued, as a safe­guard against an Islamist takeover.

After tak­ing office Mr. Morsi spent months court­ing the gen­er­als, some­times earn­ing the deri­sion of lib­eral activists for his pub­lic flat­tery of their role. In an August decree, he relied on the back­ing of some top offi­cers to remove the hand­ful of gen­er­als who had insisted on main­tain­ing a polit­i­cal role. And then last month, despite the protests of the same activists, the new Islamist-backed draft con­sti­tu­tion turned out to include pro­tec­tions of the military’s auton­omy and priv­i­leges within the Egypt­ian gov­ern­ment, sug­gest­ing an under­stand­ing between the two sides that may now come into effect.

...

On Sat­ur­day, Mohamed Badie, the Mus­lim Brotherhood’s spir­i­tual guide, held a news con­fer­ence to argue that the group had been the vic­tim of its oppo­nents’ attacks and not an aggres­sor, at times almost plead­ing with its oppo­nents not to let their fear of the Islamists keep them away from nego­ti­at­ing a res­o­lu­tion to the crisis.

“I am telling every­one, ‘Do not hate the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood so much that you for­get Egypt’s inter­est,’ ” he said. “You can be angry at us and hate us as much as you want.” But he added: “Pro­tect Egypt. Its unity can­not take what is hap­pen­ing right now.”

So we have what appear to be some sort of mar­tial law warn­ing com­ing from Morsi at the military’s request (recall that Morsi was the Mus­lim Brotherhood’s polit­i­cal “fixer” and lia­son with the Egypt­ian secu­rity forces before becom­ing pres­i­dent). And the mil­i­tary itself also issued a state­ment call­ing for dia­logue and warn­ing of a “dark tun­nel” for Egypt should the mil­i­tary be forced to inter­vene. So there’s a very strong mes­sage being sent to Morsi’s oppo­nents to end the street protest.

And now, later in the day, we get a new decree. A decree to annul the pre­vi­ous decrees...well, some of them. The decree about the con­sti­tu­tional rat­i­fi­ca­tion vote next week is still in force:

8 Decem­ber 2012 Last updated at 17:54 ET
Egypt cri­sis: Pres­i­dent Morsi ‘annuls’ pow­ers decree

Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Mohammed Morsi has annulled a decree he issued last month that hugely expanded his pow­ers and sparked angry protests, offi­cials say.

How­ever, a news con­fer­ence in Cairo was told that a ref­er­en­dum on a draft con­sti­tu­tion would still go ahead as planned on 15 December.

Mr Morsi’s crit­ics have accused him of act­ing like a dic­ta­tor, but he says he is safe­guard­ing the revolution.

He said the extra pow­ers were needed to force through reforms.

Since tak­ing office, Mr Morsi has been at log­ger­heads with the judiciary.

“The con­sti­tu­tional decree is annulled from this moment,” said Selim al-Awa, an Islamist politi­cian act­ing as a spokesman for a meet­ing Mr Morsi held ear­lier with polit­i­cal leaders.

Post­pone­ment call

The president’s sup­port­ers say the judi­ciary is made up of reac­tionary fig­ures from the old regime of strong­man Hosni Mubarak.

But his oppo­nents have mounted almost con­tin­u­ous protests since 22 Novem­ber, when the decree was passed.

They are also furi­ous over the draft­ing of a new national con­sti­tu­tion because they see the process as being dom­i­nated by Mr Morsi’s Islamist allies.

An umbrella oppo­si­tion group, the National Sal­va­tion Group, has demanded Mr Morsi rescind his decree and post­pone a ref­er­en­dum on the new con­sti­tu­tion due on 15 December.

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It’s look­ing like Egypt may have found itself in the unfor­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion of hav­ing to not only ask the ques­tion “Can the unstop­pable force move the unmov­able object?” but also answer it. Is a decree to end all future decrees pos­si­ble now that the decree-on/decree-off prece­dent has been set or is Egypt going to be stuck in a per­pet­ual state of an unde­clared decree threat? And if the mil­i­tary is really form­ing an Islamist alliance it’s we may end up with a sit­u­a­tion of selec­tive enforce­ment of that threat (e.g. when the youth protests in the future they get a crack­down but if the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood does it there’s no response). While the decree annul­ment does look like a pos­i­tive step over­all, this is also a poten­tially omi­nous turn of events. If the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood can estab­lish early on that there is an implicit threat that civil dis­obe­di­ence will results in mar­tial law and a decree-spree, that threat is going to go a long way towards accom­plish­ing the Mus­lim Brotherhood’s long-term vision for an unde­mo­c­ra­tic Islamist state in Egypt.