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Egypt's highest court declared the parliament invalid Thursday, and the country's interim military rulers promptly declared full legislative authority, triggering a new level of chaos and confusion in the country's leadership.
The court found that all articles making up the law that regulated parliamentary elections are invalid, said Showee Elsayed, a constitutional lawyer.
Parliament had been in session for just over four months. It was dominated by Islamists, a group long viewed with suspicion by the military. 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.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/14/world/meast/egypt-ruling/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
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something something shocking news.
Not really though. I mean I'm surprised at the timing; right after the law that allowed arrests to be made with indefinite imprisonment without charge expired. Seems pretty tyrannical. But the article does mention at the end, more of a footnote really, that Parliament failed to agree on a committee to write a new constitution defining the powers of the President and the Parliament.
If the Parliament fails to define its own power then it isn't doing much at all. Then again, this could simply just be a grab at power by the military. It's hard to tell what is the real motive in a country gripped by turmoil and civil revolt.
I hope Egyptians stand for their rights to personal freedom and safety from bodily harm. I hope they do not have to endure infringements on both to acquire those rights.
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This is actually exciting. The Islamist majority in the parliament was quite scary and maybe the military would help to prevent extremists ruling the country. It worked out for Turkey a while ago, maybe Egypt will be lucky, too. Of course, it would be bad if the military rule leads to a new despot coming in power...
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Hyrule18888 Posts
gl Egypt. I really hope this isn't going to suck for you guys...
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I think they are really both fighting for power. Overall, I think that there will be more changes in leadership as more and more political fights for power over Egypt occur.
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Probably couldnt find enough sponsors.
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The military leading the creation of a new constitution, supposed to limit their power. I can't see this going very well.
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On June 15 2012 01:47 Derez wrote: The military leading the creation of a new constitution, supposed to limit their power. I can't see this going very well. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for that the country recently was under dictatorship control meaning that the high-ups in the military is very likely to be filled with some sketchy people. It's a shame though, wouldn't like to see all the suffering they had to go through during the arabian spring go to waste =/
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If anyone is interested in presidential results, it should be announced soon. You can watch it HERE
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the egyptians are all very depressed before the elections and now. Everyone i asked there said, that they can't decide, if they wanted the muslim brotherhood, a mafia-like organisation, who will most likely damage egypt in every way or the ex-ministerpresident from the mubarak regime, who will probably (some say he is not as bad as the propaganda says he is) be like Mubarak which is not only not a progression, but also kind of like a betrayal of the revolution. Many said that they just went there and made their votes invalid.
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Sad. Just sad. Hopefully the military won't take power again, but I'm having doubts.
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Well the military candidate lost. Brotherhood's western-educated Morsi won. Hopefully he can be a president for the seculars, christians and liberals as well because strangely enough they rather wanted to risk losing the revolution than having the brotherhood in poer.
At least they didn't turn back the clock on the revolution. Maybe this guy will be a bad president, maybe not. But it's a first step and the only hope for having another free election several years down the road.
The military had the military power. There is no constitution, parliament disbanded and if then also the former Mubarak guy won, that would have been a disaster, imo. That would have been a coup and followed by a crackdown, imo. The guy would rise to power in a 100% power vacuum with the military council (and thus also the US) backing him.
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Just bumping this as Egypt's newly elected President has pretty much purged the upper echelons of the Military from the Government:
Gone is the long-serving defence minister, Field-Marshal Muhammad Tantawi, and his deputy and heir-apparent, General Sami Enan, as well as the heads of all the main service branches. Many of them received golden-parachute reassignments. Mr Tantawi and Mr Enan were given shiny medals and new appointments as “presidential advisers”. When Mr Morsi sacked his intelligence chief and several other high-level security officials on August 8th, after militants had killed 16 Egyptian soldiers in Sinai, it was seen as an assertive step by a leader seeking to make his mark. It turns out he was just warming up.
The reaction to Mr Morsi’s manoeuvre has been revealing. The SCAF has gone virtually silent. The only recent entry on its once active Facebook page is the curriculum vitae of the new defence minister, Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. Meanwhile, the slow-moving purge has continued; on August 14th another prominent SCAF member, Major General Hassan al-Roweiny, announced his retirement for “personal reasons”. He had commanded the Central Military Zone, controlling all troop movements in and around Cairo, the capital. His departure, along with Mr Tantawi’s willingness to appear publicly (and in a subordinate role) with Mr Morsi, should end any chatter about a potential coup.
Source
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So there are fresh rounds of mass protests going on after Morsi gave himself massive amount of judicial powers, all on the heels of a diplomatic victory for Egypt concerning Israel-Hamas.
Thousands of protesters gathered in Tahrir Square after opposition leaders called for a "million-man march" to protest against what they say is a coup by Morsi.
Al Jazeera Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Cairo, said that while the crowds had thinned slightly, there were still many people in Tahrir Square, "calling for the fall of the regime - the are calling for the fall of the [Muslim] Brotherhood".
Protests also turned violent in Alexandria, Port Said and Suez.
Fifteen people were injured in clashes between supporters and opponents of the president.
The headquarters of Morsi's Freedom and Justice Party headquarters in Alexandria was set on fire by protesters on Friday afternoon.
The party's offices have been attacked in five cities in total.
Source
So is this the Egyptian version of George Washington or the early reign of Pharaoh Morsi?
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im half Egyptian, and i was skeptical about Morsi from the first minute.
He made a lot of promises but he didn't do anything till now. But when i talk to my uncle (who is a big supporter of Morsi) he says we have to wait and see what happens and we have to give him a chance. I still think this guy won't do anything for Egypt and fuck the country up even more.
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tbh I don't know what to understand from these powers he gave himself. He says he wants to uphold the values of the revolution and bring the justice it had called for. That's all cool, but where is everything else. So far its only been speeches and slogans. One thing is for sure, that is he is after all the old regime and he wants to bring them down for good. Dictatorial or democratic, i think we are in the grey area in between.
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Rise to prominence on the backs of cleansing the previous regime, then become like the previous regime. Not saying Egypt is on that path yet, but I wouldn't be surprised they go down that road given how many times it has happened in history.
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Right now, Morsi is doing the anti-Arbenz thing. He is riding the tides of the old and then continuing the old. This can't end well. The reason why people like him now is because he has rid them of the old bad, but he looks like he will become another Fugulcencio Batista.
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On August 19 2012 12:29 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Just bumping this as Egypt's newly elected President has pretty much purged the upper echelons of the Military from the Government: Show nested quote +Gone is the long-serving defence minister, Field-Marshal Muhammad Tantawi, and his deputy and heir-apparent, General Sami Enan, as well as the heads of all the main service branches. Many of them received golden-parachute reassignments. Mr Tantawi and Mr Enan were given shiny medals and new appointments as “presidential advisers”. When Mr Morsi sacked his intelligence chief and several other high-level security officials on August 8th, after militants had killed 16 Egyptian soldiers in Sinai, it was seen as an assertive step by a leader seeking to make his mark. It turns out he was just warming up.
The reaction to Mr Morsi’s manoeuvre has been revealing. The SCAF has gone virtually silent. The only recent entry on its once active Facebook page is the curriculum vitae of the new defence minister, Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. Meanwhile, the slow-moving purge has continued; on August 14th another prominent SCAF member, Major General Hassan al-Roweiny, announced his retirement for “personal reasons”. He had commanded the Central Military Zone, controlling all troop movements in and around Cairo, the capital. His departure, along with Mr Tantawi’s willingness to appear publicly (and in a subordinate role) with Mr Morsi, should end any chatter about a potential coup. Source
This was actually a really bad thing. The military wasn't good, but the Islamic Brotherhood is much, much worse, not to mention Islamist.
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I don't think Egypt can escape major unrest and violence unless Morsi backs down. The Muslim Brotherhood has enough power and popularity to beat down any challenge to its authority from Egypt's secularists and liberals but the military is still the strongest single group in the country and can't be happy over this. And there is also the situation with Israel to consider. The last thing the Egyptian military wants is to get dragged into a more confrontational situation with Israel.
Arab triumphalism and arrogance has caused gross miscalculations in the past both directly in the conflict with Israel and indirectly. Arab rulers have used that conflict both as a way to distract popular unhappiness and as a way to justify their policies and holds on power, with violent results:
Lost wars against Israel, Black September in Jordan in 1970, the PLO's and Israel's involvement in the Lebanese Civil War and the consequent birth of Hezbollah, the assassination of Sadat, and also, in part, the Egyptian portion of the "Arab Spring" (Mubarak's policy of being very receptive to Israeli wishes while at the same time encouraging the whipping up of anti-Semitism in the media and culture, which made Egyptians want to be more confrontational with Israel, and mad at him because he wasn't, and more likely to support the Muslim Brotherhood, which wants more confrontation with Israel).
Morsi has just won a huge diplomatic and public relations victory that has the shortsighted in the world (most of the foreign ministries / departments and the media) confirming Egypt as back in the game for top Muslim power in the Middle East, and his personal standing as the new great Muslim Hero finally standing up to the Zionists. So he has miscalculated and made a reach that exceeds easy grasp.
He may well make good his claims to, in effect, total power. But not without a significant struggle that may give the Army an excuse to step in. If the situation got bad enough the Army would step in anyway, and there's the added incentive of being able to say "Look at us, the generals, saving you from a new tyrant!"
This is exactly the kind of blunder the Muslim Brotherhood needed to avoid to consolidate its new formal power. Go for a sham democracy with the Muslim Brotherhood holding all the cards the way the mullahs do in Iran later. Big mistake to go for it so soon.
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