Egypt’s highest court on Thursday declared the parliament invalid, and the country’s interim military rulers declared full legislative authority, triggering a new level of chaos and confusion in the country’s leadership.
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The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, in control of the country since Mubarak’s ouster, announced that it now has full legislative power and will announce a 100-person assembly that will write the country’s new constitution by Friday.
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Sorry, pet peeve of mine in my writing. Presume you meant will announce by Friday an assembly to…
It appears the Egyptians will only get democracy after they overthrow their new military rulers. Where are the US/EU expressions of outrage?
Egypt’s Judges and Generals Dissolve Parliament: Is the Revolution Now Truly Over?
Confident that raw power and divisions among the opposition preclude any serious challenge, the junta overturns the table on a democratic transition
By Tony Karon | @tonykaron | June 14, 2012 | 2
The coup d’etat that began 18 months ago in Egypt with the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak initially camouflaged itself in the language of “revolution†and promises of democracy, even as it worked to prevent the collapse of the old order and divide and conquer its challengers. But Thursday’s rulings by the Supreme Constitutional Court have shed the “revolutionary†disguise: Egypt will be effectively ruled by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces junta and its backers in the bureaucracy and judiciary until further notice.
The court, a holdover from the Mubarak era not only slapped down a law passed by the democratically elected parliament to bar officials of the former regime from running for office; it effectively dissolved the legislature itself. The first ruling upholds the candidacy of the military’s preferred option, former Mubarak Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik, in Saturday’s presidential election runoff against the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi. And given events of recent weeks, the smart money wouldn’t bet against him coming out on top in the race for a position whose powers have not yet been defined, a process over which the military retains a prerogative. Dissolving parliament on the grounds that one third of its seats were allegedly elected in an unconstitutional manner (albeit under the supervision of the junta and judiciary) may have even more far-reaching consequences: The Constituent Assembly, a highly contested body appointed by the parliament to draft a new constitution, is unlikely to survive the dissolution of the legislature that created it.
“Today’s moves by the Constitutional Court on behalf of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) seem difficult to overcome and likely to push Egypt onto a dangerous new path,†warns George Washington University analyst Marc Lynch, who was an adviser to the Obama Administration during last year’s Arab rebellions. “With Egypt looking ahead to no parliament, no constitution, and a deeply divisive new president, it’s fair to say the experiment in military-led transition has come to its disappointing end. Weeks before the SCAF’s scheduled handover of power, Egypt now finds itself with no parliament, no constitution (or even a process for drafting one), and a divisive presidential election with no hope of producing a legitimate, consensus-elected leadership. Its judiciary has become a bad joke, with any pretense of political independence from the military shattered beyond repair.â€
The military has effectively closed the chapter of “revolution†and ended hope that the Mubarak’s regime would be followed by a democratic political order. Whereas some Muslim Brotherhood leaders had spoken of Egypt following the model of today’s prosperous and relatively democratic Turkey (governed by moderate Islamists), the generals and their allies have followed a different Turkish model: the “Deep State†Turkey of the past century, in which electoral politics were a sideshow intended to create a veneer of legitimacy for the authority of Kemalist generals and judges styling themselves as guardians of secularism. As if by way of exclamation point on their latest rulings, the judges on Wednesday reimposed de facto martial law, restoring the security forces’ blanket authority to make arbitrary arrests until such time as a new constitution is in force. Right now, there’s no timetable for tabling a new constitution. And the only institution with any democratic legitimacy has now been dissolved, with no clarity on how and when it will be replaced.
TIME World: Egypt’s Judges and Generals Dissolve Parliament: Is the Revolution Now Truly Over?
they will say see democracy is working! They will express deep concern and throw their backing behind the military.
Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart. ~ Phil Jackson
Marc Lynch | Foreign Policy
“A few weeks ago, I dared to hope that despite “the stupidest transition in history,” Egypt might still end up backing into a minimally workable political outcome as long as the SCAF lived up to its promise to transfer power to an elected civilian government. Then, the first round of the presidential election went about as badly as it could have, leaving voters with a choice between the champion of the former ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, after the failure of the political center to unite on a candidate and the arbitrary disqualification of several top candidates from the race. Then, Egypt’s political forces failed, and after a last-minute deal failed again, to come up with a way to draft a legitimate constitution. And then, the SCAF discarded one of the real accomplishments of the transition, the end of emergency law, by restoring vast powers to security services to arrest civilians.
Today, Egypt’s constitutional court delivered the coup de grace by refusing to disqualify Mubarak’s former prime minister Ahmed Shafik from the race and effectively dissolving the elected parliament by declaring the individual election of one-third of its members illegal. The former decision was probably the right one, to be frank, though it was a missed opportunity for a “hail Mary” political reset. But the latter was absurd, destructive, and essentially voids Egypt’s last year of politics of meaning. Weeks before the SCAF’s scheduled handover of power, Egypt now finds itself with no parliament, no constitution (or even a process for drafting one), and a divisive presidential election with no hope of producing a legitimate, consensus-elected leadership. Its judiciary has become a bad joke, with any pretence of political independence from the military shattered beyond repair.”
if the Islamist appear too close to control the military will intervene.