The New Egypt...?
"Everyone was expecting this to happen but not now, unless this decision was taken in agreement with the army council, but I doubt this." Political analyst Mohamed Khalil
"This means he is taking legislative power from the army council and returning it to parliament. So maybe in this period he needs certain laws to empower the government or to implement the 100-day plan."
The Muslim Brotherhood exhibited ample patience in the 80 years it has taken them to finally achieve a position of power in Egypt, where formerly they were an outlawed Islamist movement, many of their leaders arrested and imprisoned by President Hosni Mubarak, after the assassination by Brotherhood agents of former president Anwar Sadat.
It seems their patience has run thin. The exhilaration of having finally reached the pinnacle of success in achieving a majority status in the new parliament alongside the Salafist party, seemed to spur them onward, permitting their normal caution to lapse. Since being handed the power of the presidency by the ruling generals in the wake of the election that saw Mohamed Mursi receive a majority of the vote, an uneasy truce between the military and the Brotherhood prevailed.
But that truce has now been challenged. President Mursi has recalled the parliament that the Supreme Court dismissed as representing the questionable result of an illegal election where members of the Brotherhood posing as independents were elected as such despite their obvious allegiance as members of the Brotherhood.
The military handed itself the legislative powers to write a new constitution when it dismissed the Islamist-led parliament, and President Mursi has now reversed the situation, removing legislative powers from the army, returning the parliament at his order. This decree has been received as unsettling by the generals who had no warning of what was to come.
Neatly turning around the surprise of the dismissed legislature. He has also indicated an early parliamentary election to be held within 60 days of a new national-approved constitution. Disagreements between Islamists, liberals and those in between about who should write the new constitution are hindering the process.
The business that is ensuing with Egypt's new president wasting no time in taking the reins of government, seems to be setting the stage for a clash between the Brotherhood and the military. If new parliamentary elections are indeed held within 60 days of the new constitution, it is likely that those who voted for the Brotherhood in an effort to disable the old regime, may now look askance at the opportunity to continue to uphold the Brotherhood aspirations.
Their initial success may, as a result, be unlikely to be repeated when a suspicious electorate that held its nose and voted for the Brotherhood in an effort to restrain the military and depose the old regime, may now think twice about its decision-making.
The political, social and economic destabilization of the country leaves it wounded in the wake of its reflection of the Arab Spring that so incentivized and exhilarated the young Liberals that they were unable to see their revolution being hijacked before their very disbelieving eyes.
Labels: Conflict, Democracy, Egypt, Islamism
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, July 10, 2012
<< Home