Tag Archives: morsi

Egypt

Morsi’s Egypt spirals further into chaos with apparent Dec. 15 constitutional referendum

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It’s hard to believe that 10 days ago, Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi seemed firmly in control of events in the Arab world’s most populous country — he had just been instrumental in achieving a ceasefire between Palestinians in Gaza and Israel, and Egypt’s constituent assembly, despite some difficulties, was plodding its way toward the draft of a new constitution for a newly democratized nation.

Today, of course, Morsi stands at the most controversial point of his young presidency, defending the unilateral decree he announced on November 22 asserting extraordinary (if temporary) presidential powers, and hoping to push through a referendum in just 12 days — on December 15 — over a constitution rushed out by the constituent assembly just last week.

Morsi announced the referendum over the weekend, which means there will be no shortage of tumult in the days and weeks ahead.

I’ve not written much about the latest political crisis in Egypt, the latest act in what seems like an unending drama that began with the Tahrir Square protests in January 2011 that pushed longtime Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak from office, through over a year of military rule by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the 2011 parliamentary elections and their subsequent cancellation, even more parliamentary elections and their (second) disqualification, and a roller-coaster presidential election that ended with Morsi’s narrow victory over former Air Force commander Ahmed Shafiq on June 24.

Morsi, just over five months into his tenure as Egypt’s president, has argued that the decree is necessary to safeguard Egypt’s strides toward democracy, and if he wins his latest gambit, he’ll have pushed Egypt from the post-revolutionary phase into something more enduring, although at the cost of an Egyptian constitution that remains incredibly controversial and at the risk of having enacted it in a manner entirely inconsistent with democratic norms and the rule of law.

Pro-revolutionary forces took to Tahrir Square last week once again in opposition to Morsi, and pro-Islamist forces counter-protested over the weekend in favor of Morsi.  But with now, apparently, less than two weeks to go until the constitutional referendum, it’s worth taking a look at where each of the key players in the unfolding events stand.   Continue reading Morsi’s Egypt spirals further into chaos with apparent Dec. 15 constitutional referendum →

Egypt

Morsi: ‘We’re learning. We’re learning how to be free.’

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Less than a week after Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi’s extraordinary decree asserting exception presidential powers, he’s given an English language interview to Time magazine.

It’s incredibly fascinating.

Read it all.

Among other things (including a hard-to-follow metaphor about Planet of the Apes — the old one, not the new one), Morsi shows no regret about his decree:

What I can see now is, the Egyptians are free. They are raising their voices when they are opposing the President and when they are opposing what’s going on. And this is very important. It’s their right to express and to raise their voices and express their feelings and attitudes. But it’s my responsibility. I see things more than they do…

But there is some violence. Also, there is some relation shared between these violent acts and some symbols of the previous regime. I think you and I — I have more information, but you can feel that there is something like this in this matter.

I’m sure Egyptians will pass through this. We’re learning. We’re learning how to be free.

I’ve typically been inclined to give Morsi the benefit of the doubt (i.e., during the U.S. embassy protests earlier in September), but last week’s decree was difficult to understand — and today’s rushed vote by the constituent assembly to push through a new constitution is equally troubling.

Morsi has had to balance a difficult set of competing interests, and until last week, I thought he has done a better-than-expected job in managing those competing interests, but I wonder how much longer the current crisis can go on until Egyptian’s still-powerful military begins to assert itself.

Egypt

Egyptian president Morsi caught in the crossfire in embassy riots kerfuffle

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Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi today in Brussels made his most detailed comments yet on the Sept. 11 protests/attacks that took place at the U.S. embassy in Cairo (and the more deadly assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in Libya):

“Muslims and Christians in Egypt are equal citizens and have the same rights… We are cautious about those principles and human values, also respecting visitors and respecting tourists… and respecting and protecting diplomatic delegations and private and public properties, and not attacking them.

“Freedom, and ensuring safety of self, and protecting this freedom and people and preserving property is the responsibility of the Egyptian nation.”

He continued: “The Egyptian nation is capable now of protecting people’s opinions and allowing them breathing room, as well as protecting diplomatic delegations and all foreigners, visitors, tourists, embassies and consulates in Egypt.”

“I see in Egypt and the Arab and Islamic world a severe anger toward the violations made by a very small number of individuals. They have insulted the prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. We stand very strongly against this. We don’t agree with or approve this, and we stand against anyone who tries to raise such false slogans and create these disturbances, tension and hatred between populations.”

“Those [people] are not accepted, not by people in Egypt nor other Arab and Islamic countries, nor by their own people. I affirm that the American people reject this and I’ve called on them to declare their rejection of them, at the same time with our rejection of those bad practices that bring harm and not benefit.”

Got all that?  To me, those sound like the words of a president terrified at the thought of losing any side over this week’s crisis — and the sides are too numerous to count.

At home, he certainly can’t be seen as standing weak in defense of Islam, but he also can’t be seen in the United States as condoning violent attacks on the U.S. embassy.

It’s hard to believe that Morsi has been in office for only about 10 weeks — he won (narrowly) Egypt’s presidential runoff on June 24 against former air force commander and Mubarak-era prime minister Ahmed Shafiq.

Remember, too, that it’s been just six months since Morsi has appointed his prime minister, Hisham Qandil, and less than a month since Morsi pulled off his more-or-less successful political coup in retiring the military’s chief, Hussein Tantawi, who had served as Egypt’s defense minister since 1991, thereby making Morsi the indisputable head of state.

It’s clear that the U.S. president Barack Obama is none too pleased with Morsi’s reticence in condemning the attacks, especially given the unqualified condemnation offered up across the board by Libya’s political elite yesterday.  The U.S. administration, with Obama up for reelection within 60 days, might be justifiably short on patience with the Middle East these days, given the dual crises in Libya and Egypt following the embassy riots, and an Israeli prime minister who is publicly attacking the Obama administration at every turn over Iran’s nuclear weapons program (and despite Morsi’s visit to Tehran, the first of an Egyptian leader since the 1979 Iranian revolution, there’s no love lost in Cairo for Iran).

Above all, Morsi was set to meet with Obama in Washington in October — if that meeting still happens, you better believe it’s going to be incredibly tense.  U.S. public opinion has now sharply condemned Morsi, and even the Cairo embassy has taken to snarking at the Muslim Brotherhood via Twitter for talking out of both sides of its mouth (one Arabic, the other English).

Morsi cannot lose the United States and the United States naturally wants to give him the benefit of the doubt — despite the Obama administration’s unease with an Islamist president, Morsi was elected democratically, and the U.S. will want to see the positive outcome of the Arab Spring that it so vociferously trumpeted since the early days of the protests in Tahrir Square back in February 2011.  So it’s still in the best interests of the United States to maintain a constructive relationship with Egypt.  But Morsi needs U.S. support even more — not just in luring tourists, but in encouraging the foreign investment necessary to revitalize a stagnated, bloated and state-heavy economy, including a much-needed loan from the International Monetary Foundation. Continue reading Egyptian president Morsi caught in the crossfire in embassy riots kerfuffle →

Libya

Who is Mohamed al-Magariaf?

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Today’s U.S. — and world — media are likely to be focused on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the resulting deaths of U.S. diplomatic personnel there, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens. 

That’s crazy, given that today has already seen the jarring attacks on the U.S. embassy in Cairo, an attempted assassination on the new Somali president, and amid increasingly public tensions between the United States and Israel over Iran’s nuclear program.  And that’s just in the Middle East — today is also a big day for Europe, with the Dutch elections and the German constitutional court’s decision to uphold the European Stability Mechanism.

In the meanwhile, it’s worth noting a little more about Libya’s new interim sort-of leader, Mohamed al-Magariaf, who in a press conference earlier today strongly condemned the hardline Salafist attacks on the U.S. consulate and apologized for the killing of Stevens and other U.S. personnel (in contrast to Egyptian president’s Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohammed Morsi, who has yet to condemn the Cairo embassy incident):

“On behalf of the presidency of GC, government and the Libyan people we offer deep condolences to the American government, people and the families of the ambassador and other victims,” the statement said.

The statement also said Libya “confirms the strong relations between the Libyan and American peoples which has been further cemented as a result of the US government’s support of the 17 February revolution.”

“While we strongly condemn any attempts of insult the person of the Prophet and our sanctities or tampering with our beliefs,” we reject the use of force and terrorizing innocent civilians, said Magariaf.

Al-Magariaf was elected the president of the General National Congress of Libya on August 12, making him Libya’s interim (for now) head of state.  As among the three Muslim countries that the United States has liberated in the past decade, for better or worse, al-Magariaf contrasts with Iraq’s Nouri al-Maliki and Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai in that he is less corrupt and more dependable.  Among the three countries (and Pakistan, too), he is by and far the friendliest and most helpful leader.

Al-Magariaf is from Benghazi, where the attack took place.  Benghazi is Libya’s second-largest city and the urban center in the eastern Cyrenaica region of Libya (in contrast to the coastal northwestern Tripolitania and southwestern Fezzan).  Benghazi is also, ironically, where the revolt against Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi began in 2010.

The GNC, an interim parliament called for the purpose of running Libya’s government until an elected Constituent Assembly can draft a new constitution for Libya, was appointed following Libya’s first free election in decades on July 7 — among the 200 members, 120 seats were reserved for political independents and 80 for political parties.

Among the 80 seats reserved for political parties, Mahmoud Jabril’s National Forces Alliance (تحالف القوى الوطنية) won 39, and it was seen as a victory for moderates — the Muslim Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction Party (حزب العدالة والب) won just 17 seats.  Al-Magariaf himself represents the National Front Party (حزب الجبهة الوطنية‎), a successor to the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, a group al-Magariaf formed in 1981 in opposition to Gaddafi, who ruled Libya from 1969 until just last year.

The National Front Party won just three seats, but al-Magariaf has a long record of opposition to Gaddafi and good relations with the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya.  Al-Magariaf is a political liberal more interested in rebuilding Libya’s government and economy than promoting Islamic rule, but is viewed with less suspicion than Jibril, who served in Gadaffi’s administration from 2007 to 2011 as the head of Libya’s National Economic Development Board in an effort to revitalize and privatize the Libyan economy.  Although al-Magariaf served as Libya’s ambassador to India until 1980, he defected in Morocco in that year, and remained in exile in the United States as the leader of the National Front until his return to Libya just last year.

Continue reading Who is Mohamed al-Magariaf? →

Egypt

Morsi, in firing defense minister, asserts presidential control over Egypt

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Of course, the significance of the decision by Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi on Sunday to announce the resignation of not just Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi as defense minister, but his deputy, General Sami Anan, cannot be understated.

It is easily the most significant moment in Egyptian governance since Morsi’s election — and it, surprisingly, comes just over a week after Morsi’s first cabinet was sworn in — a cabinet that seemed destined to feature Egypt’s military, with little civilian participation from beyond the Muslim Brotherhood and its sphere of allies.

But it also comes very soon after Morsi fired his intelligence chief in the wake of increased attacks and a growing Islamic fundamentalist threat on the Egypt-Israel border in Sinai.

Tantawi, the leader of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that led Egypt’s transitional government between the fall of Hosni Mubarak and Morsi’s election, has essentially been the head of Egypt’s military since his appointment as secretary of defense in 1991.  His reappointment as defense secretary in the cabinet of Morsi’s prime minister, Hisham Qandil, was seen as a sign that the Egyptian military had reached somewhat of an uneasy truce with Morsi — Morsi may be the elected president, but the military would have enough residual power to veto Morsi on key issues, especially where national security is involved.

That changed Sunday — and the Tantawi and Anan retirements are not all that Morsi (pictured above, right)accomplished.

Morsi amended the last-minute June 17 declaration by SCAF that has attempted to limit presidential powers; instead, Morsi issued a new Constitutional Declaration that gives the president full executive and legislative authority, as well as power to set Egyptian public policy and sign international treaties.  He also appointed Mahmoud Mekki, a respected deputy head of the Cassation Court, as his vice president (although in doing so, Morsi seemed to break a promise to appoint a woman and a Coptic Christian as his vice presidents).

Morsi appointed as the new defense minister a little-known general, Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi (pictured above, far left).  In a profile today, Al Ahram noted that the 57-year-old El-Sisi, who previously served as Egypt’s military attaché to Saudi Arabia, will be the first Egyptian defense minister who also doesn’t hold the title of field marshal.  El-Sisi is best known internationally as the general who announced that the military had conducted virginity tests on female protestors at Tahrir Square in order to prove soldiers had not raped them.  SCAF subsequently backtracked on El-Sisi’s somewhat embarrassing statement.

Much of Egypt’s independent media and figures such as Mohamed ElBaradei have welcomed Morsi’s move.  A wide spectrum, from youth protest leaders to Salafists are applauding what seems to be a bona-fide transfer of power from the military to the civilian president.

Mark Lynch at Foreign Policy dubbed Egypt’s president “Lamborhini Morsi” and offers three alternative (not incompatible) takes: Continue reading Morsi, in firing defense minister, asserts presidential control over Egypt →

Egypt

Egypt’s new government sworn in today, featuring continuity from SCAF transitional government

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The first Egyptian cabinet of newly elected Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi and his new prime minister Hisham Qandil was sworn in today.

That Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi (pictured above, with US defense secretary Leon Panetta) will continue to serve as defense minister in the cabinet of tells you everything you need to know about Egypt’s new cabinet.

Qandil admitted as much in a press conference following the ceremony — the cabinet will feature continuity over rupture.

Tantawi, Egypt’s minister of defense since 1991 and the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that took over Egypt’s government after the resignation of former president Hosni Mubarak, is the personification of the Egyptian military.  Although it was widely expected that he would continue in some role in Morsi’s government, at least initially, it makes clear that Egypt’s military will still wield a considerable amount of power, notwithstanding the transition to a democratically-elected president.

Otherwise, many of the “new” cabinet ministers are holdovers from the prior transitional government of SCAF prime minister Kamal al-Ganzouri, including the finance minister, Momtaz el-Said, and the foreign minister, Mohamed Kamel Amr, both career diplomats.

The remaining positions went mostly to longtime Muslim Brotherhood figures (although not to Khairat al-Shater, the Brotherhood’s first-choice presidential candidate), including:

  • Mostafa Mosaad, a member of the Brotherhood’s direct political vehicle, the Freedom and Justice Party (حزب الحرية والعدالة‎), was appointed higher education minister.
  • Tarek Wafiq, an engineer and head of the FJP’s housing committee, was appointed housing minister.
  • Salah Abdel Maqsoof, an outspoken Muslim Brotherhood journalist, was appointed minister of information (and will, notably, control access to state television and other key media sources).

The SCAF-heavy cabinet is already being criticized as lacking enough fresh faces, lacking women and lacking any political appointees from outside the Muslim Brotherhood.  Qandil’s appointment last week has been subject to much criticism — he’s been perceived as having insufficient political experience, a lacking economic background and very close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

One of the most promising appointments is the new justice minister, Ahmed Mekky, a prominent and reform-minded judge who is the former vice president of Egypt’s Court of Appeals, and Mohamed Mahsoub, a member of the centrist Al-Wasat party will be the minister of parliamentary affairs.

Despite an initial decision to appoint hard-line Salafist scholar Mohamed Ibrahim as minister of religious endowments, Morsi and Qandil appear to have backed down amid criticism and instead appointed Osama El-Abd, the vice-chancellor of Al-Azhar University, the oldest university in Egypt. Continue reading Egypt’s new government sworn in today, featuring continuity from SCAF transitional government →

Egypt

Morsi announces surprise choice as new Egyptian prime minister

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This is a little strange.

Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi has appointed little-known Hisham Qandil, the current transitional minister of water resources and irrigation, as Egypt’s new prime minister.

This upends several media reports over the past few weeks that Morsi was narrowing his search to more well-known economist types, such as former Central Bank of Egypt president Mahmoud Abul-Eyoun.  The announcement came nearly a month after Morsi was sworn in and after multiple delays.

Since inauguration, Morsi has struggled with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces over everything from the appointment of the Constituent Assembly (which will write Egypt’s new constitution) to the disbanding of Egypt’s Islamist-dominated parliament.  One of the key problems in assessing Qandil’s appointment is that no one knows what Morsi’s powers will be as Egypt’s president (especially vis-a-vis SCAF), let alone what to expect from his prime minister.

We also know what Egypt’s investors think of the appointment: not much. Stock prices in the benchmark EGX 30 fell 1% today.

Qandil, relatively young at age 50, is not a particular specialist in economics and, prior to his appointment as water minister in July 2011, was a senior bureaucrat in the water ministry.  At a press conference later, he announced that he intends to appoint a technocratic cabinet shortly, and that he would focus on Morsi’s five top priorities — his ‘100 day plan’ to focus on security, traffic, bread, public cleanliness and fuel.

The announcement does not tell us with any further clarity what official role, if any, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Khairat al-Shater will play in the new government — al-Shater, a businessman and Islamic activist, was the Brotherhood’s original candidate for president prior to his disqualification earlier this spring, and is believed to wield signficant influence behind the scenes with the new Morsi administration.

I’ll note, however, that “water” is not among those five priorities, but water management and supply is a critical issue for a desert country whose main river, the Nile, is absolutely critical to its economy, transportation, agriculture, health and sustainability.

Like Morsi, he appears to have studied in the United States — he apparently has a doctorate in irrigation from the University of North Carolina in 1993.  He has also served as a senior manager for the African Development Bank.

It’s also strange that the announcement came initially via the Facebook page of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party — Morsi has gone to lengths to sever official ties with the group since his election last month as Egypt’s new president, and he stressed in his press conference that Qandil has belonged to no official political party, but Egypt Independent has already noted one detail that could concern secularists:

The former irrigation minister’s beard has caused speculation of Islamist tendencies. He denied any affiliation with Islamist groups when he told Al Jazeera his beard was grown in keeping with religious obligations.

Photograph by Al-Masry Al-Youm of the Egypt Indpendent.

Egypt

Former Mubarak intelligence chief Omar Suleiman has died

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Omar Suleiman has died at 77, while undergoing medical tests in the United States.

He will not be missed among Egypt’s revolution-minded citizens, and he will be remembered both for the human rights violations that he is alleged to have committed as Egypt’s top intelligence chief for decades.  I think most of all, he’ll be remembered for his visible role as the vice president in the last, hectic days of Hosni Mubarak’s regime.  When the end came for the regime, it was Suleiman’s glassy face we remember, hours before the military brass issued its Communiqué No. 1, bringing the curtain down.

But recall that Suleiman was disqualified — along with several other top candidates — for the presidential race.  In the wake of that decision, former Mubarak prime minister Ahmed Shafiq effectively consolidated the pro-security, pro-military sector of the electorate to place second in the first round of the presidential election on May 23 and 24, and he only narrowly lost the runoff on June 16 and 17.

Had Suleiman not been disqualified, he may well have won the voters that ultimately supported Shafiq and perhaps had a real shot at winning the Egyptian presidency.

It’s hard to imagine how Egypt’s transfer could be any bumpier than it’s been, but it’s worth pausing to note that a Suleiman victory would have been an even greater disaster.  In addition to what would have been a controversial return of the felool — ‘remnants’ — of the old regime to power, Egypt would today be dealing with the fallout of that president’s death in office just three weeks after his inauguration.

Instead, we are awaiting the appointment of Mohammed Morsi’s prime minister, and Egypt’s Administrative Court has passed on the opportunity to disrupt the work of the Constituent Assembly, the group that is drafting Egypt’s new constitution.

Egypt

Forget PIMCO’s Mohamed El-Erian — Egypt’s new PM is likely to be Mahmoud Abul-Eyoun

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UPDATE, July 24: In a surprise move, Morsi has announced water minister Hisham Qandil as his new prime minister.

* * * *

Newly inaugurated Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi is set to announce his pick for prime minister on Wednesday, which will be perhaps the single most important signal yet from the Morsi administration as to how he will govern.

Western media are speculating that it will be none other than Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Co.  The idea that El-Erian would leave PIMCO and return to Egypt after an entire adult life spent abroad to take on an undefined role for a Muslim Brotherhood-backed president whose role is equally undefined is, to say the least, farfetched.  Even El-Erian himself appears to have denied the reports.

In contrast, several Egypt-based news sources seem almost certain that the new prime minister will be former Central Bank of Egypt president Mahmoud Abul-Eyoun (shown above), who served as the CBE president from 2001 to 2003 and served as CEO of the Kuwait International Bank until December 2011.

If not Abul-Eyoun, sources have indicated that the prime minister will come from among three additional possibilities, each of whom is an economist: Farouq al-Oqda, the current governor of the Central Bank of Egypt since 2003; Hazem al-Biblawy, a former finance minister; or Osama Saleh, head of the General Authority for Investment.

Those reports make a lot of sense to me:

  • Morsi is not an economist, but the biggest challenge for his administration will be to boost Egypt’s sclerotic economy — international reserves have plummeted by half and borrowing costs have risen 50% since Hosni Mubarak was toppled in Febraury 2011 after three decades in power.  Unemployment is high, especially among the young, and GDP growth is expected to slow from an already tepid 2.5% in 2011 to just 1.5% this year.
  • Morsi has stated  that he wants to appoint a cabinet gradually, so as to ensure the seamless nature of the transition.
  • If he appoints a Muslim Brotherhood member or an Islamist, it will be instantly divisive , drawing mistrust from Coptic Christians, secularists and liberals, to say nothing of SCAF, the military and the so-called ‘deep state’ elements that remain entrenched in the fabric of Egyptian political power.
  • As the former parliamentary leader of the Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood’s political arm, however, Morsi will not want to appoint a prime minister deemed too unacceptable to the Brotherhood.
  • If he appoints someone too close to SCAF or Hosni Mubarak’s old regime, he’ll draw criticism from Islamists and secularists alike.
  • If he appoints someone too famous (like El-Erian or other well-known figures), he could also risk being overshadowed or outmaneuvered — after all, Morsi’s image in Egypt is of a “spare tire” who was only the Brotherhood’s last-minute choice for the presidency.

So among those four options, Abul-Eyoun seems the most likely.  The 75-year-old al-Biblawy served as finance minister recently under the transitional SCAF government, but tried to resign after clases between police and Coptic Christians in October 2011.  Morsi may also prefer to keep al-Oqda and Saleh in their current roles, so as not to disrupt Egypt’s economy any further.

That hasn’t stopped rumors like the El-Erian one, nor has it stopped speculation that Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, might be appointed prime minister, or that the Muslim Brotherhood would prefer Khairat al-Shater, a businessman who was the Muslim Brotherhood’s first choice for the presidential race, until his disqualification in May. Continue reading Forget PIMCO’s Mohamed El-Erian — Egypt’s new PM is likely to be Mahmoud Abul-Eyoun →

Egypt

Morsi declared winner of presidential runoff in Egypt

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So it’s Mohammed Morsi.

Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, has been elected the first civilian president in the first free and fair elections (presumably) in the modern history of Egypt, which were held last weekend.

I have to say, I was anticipating the fair chance of an announcement of Ahmed Shafiq as the “winner,” notwithstanding the actual vote tally.

Morsi won 51.73% to just 48.27% for Ahmed Shafiq, the former Air Force commander, former Mubarak prime minister and likely favored candidate of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which has been a bit schizophrenic of late, to say the least, in its willingness to hand over power to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The announcement of Morsi’s victory comes after Morsi himself declared victory last Monday in the wake of unofficial counts showing him with a small, but meaningful, lead.  It’s still unclear why there’s been a delay in the announcement, which was supposed to come on Thursday.

Of course, Morsi has been elected president without anyone in Egypt knowing what that means.  Since no constitution has been drafted, it’s unclear whether Morsi will have any real power or will rather be a figurehead.

In the final hours of voting, however, SCAF announced amendments to the Constitutional Declaration promulgated in March 2011 granting itself the right to assume parliamentary powers, the right to approve the state budget, the right to veto the president’s decisions about declaring war and the right to intrude on the constitution-writing process.  On the previous Thursday, the Supreme Constitutional Court invalidated the January 2012 parliamentary elections, thereby suspending Egypt’s short-lived parliament.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party won 235 of the 508 parliamentary seats (another 121-seat bloc went to the more conservative, Salafist Al-Nour Party).

So with Morsi’s presidential victory, the Muslim Brotherhood would have been in a very strong position to, you know, actually have real power in Egypt.  Likely, the prospect of a transition to an Islamist government spooked SCAF, which has clumsily tried to rewrite the rules of the transition to give it a role akin to the Turkish military during much of the 20th century — embedded in the fabric of government (which meant that it continued to benefit from corruption and graft) and “guardian” of the secular nature of the Turkish state (which meant that, until the Erdoğan government in 2003, it would stage a coup upon the election of any Islamist government).

Morsi won 13.23 million votes out of the 26.42 million cast to just 12.35 million for Shafiq.  The election commission invalidated over 843,000 votes, less than the total margin of victory for Morsi.

It is now up to Morsi to show that he will be a president for all Egyptians, including the wide swath of pro-revolutionary voters — non-Islamists, secularists, moderates, liberals, nationalists — who supported Morsi as the only option in the face of Shafiq, whose potential election was largely seen as representing a step back to Mubarak-style semi-authoritarianism.

It is also now up to Morsi to work with SCAF to bring some conclusion to the turmoil of recent weeks and bring the transition from Mubarak to democracy (however imperfect) to a more settled conclusion, and to work with SCAF to oversee the re-instating of parliament or new elections for parliament, as well as to oversee the Constituent Assembly that will draft the constitution — before its suspension, the parliament had agreed to a body comprised 50% each of Islamists and non-Islamists.

Khairat al-Shater, the deputy chair of the Muslim Brotherhood, confirmed this week that his group and SCAF were conducting negotiations about the transfer of power.  Al-Shater, a popular former businessmen, who is seen as a pragmatic Islamist, was the Brotherhood’s first candidate for president, but was disqualified in April.

Whatever happens, it appears that SCAF, which is supposed to hand over power in a grand June 30 ceremony, will still play a significant role in Egypt’s Morsi era as well as its post-Mubarak era: Continue reading Morsi declared winner of presidential runoff in Egypt →

Egypt

Egypt to announce presidential election results Sunday at 3 pm

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Or so says the Presidential Elections Commission.

It’s been a bit of a hectic couple of weeks for Egypt, notwithstanding last Sunday’s presidential election runoff: it now has no parliament, no constitution, perhaps a dead former president and two potential living presidents, both of whom have declared victory.  And a very antsy Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that isn’t quite sure it’s ready to give up its transitional power.

In the meanwhile, we wait…

Egypt

Morsi and Shafiq both declare victory in Egypt, as SCAF moves put transition in doubt

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Events have been moving quite rapidly in Egypt over the past two days as the initial count of the presidential runoff have taken place, and there’s been no shortage of media coverage as the story continues to unfold. 

In the immediate aftermath of the race, Mohammed Morsi, the candidate of the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, declared victory on the strength of the Brotherhood’s tallies and the unofficial vote count that showed Morsi leading 52.5% to 4.7.5% over Ahmed Shafiq, his opponent, a former Air Force commander and the final prime minister of former president Hosni Mubarak, representing the ‘felool‘ (remnants) of the old regime.

Shafiq, however, backed by what remains of the technically-illegal National Democratic Party and viewed very much as the favored candidate of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, declared victory himself on Tuesday, throwing the result into further doubt.

The next step was supposed to be the announcement of final results on Thursday.  But on Tuesday, the President Elections Commission announced that it might wait until after Thursday to announce the full results.

Meanwhile:

Egypt, France, Greece

Big weekend for France, Greece and Egypt

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It’s another big weekend for elections!

Voters in Egypt go to the polls today and tomorrow to choose a president in the final runoff between the Muslim brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq, a former Air Force commander and the final prime minister of former president Hosni Mubarak, in what is seen as a Hobson’s choice between Islamism and the military. Since the Supreme Constitutional Court disbanded the parliament, and Egypt hasn’t even written a new constitution, though, we have no idea whether the new president has real power or will be a figurehead!

Read Suffragio’s coverage of the Egyptian election here.

Voters in France go to the polls for the second time in two weeks for the second round of parliamentary elections, which are expected to confirm a governing majority for newly elected Parti socialiste president François Hollande.  One open question is whether Hollande’s party (and their allies) will win the 289 seats necessary to govern without forming a coalition with the greens and/or communists.  Controversial individual contests also see Hollande’s former partner Ségolène Royal, far-right Front national leader Marine Le Pen and centrist François Bayrou fighting hard for seats in France’s national assembly.

Read Suffragio’s coverage of the French elections here.

Finally, voters return to the polls in Greece after no party emerged in May elections with enough support to form a governing coalition.  Far-left SYRIZA, led by the brash, youthful Alexis Tsipras, is expected to vie with center-right New Democracy for the lead in what will still likely be a fragmented result.  Most of the Hellenic parliament’s seats are awarded on the basis of proportional representation for all parties that receive over 3% of the vote, while the top party receives a ‘bonus’ of 50 seats.  The leading party seems likely to form a governing coalition.

Read Suffragio’s coverage of the Greek elections here.

Egypt

Morsi responds to Egypt parliament’s dissolution

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In light of what former Muslim Brotherhood leader and former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh called a coup earlier today, the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Mohammed Morsi has responded to today’s events with, let’s say, somewhat different postures, just a little over 24 hours before Egyptians head to the polls for the presidential runoff.

He is now at a press conference wrapping himself in the mantle of the revolution — apparently claiming the felool are trying to undermine the popular will, comparing them to a bone disease that Egyptian voters will wipe out in this weekend’s runoff.  He stopped short of calling the Supreme Constitutional Court’s decision to dissolve Egypt’s parliament a coup.

Earlier today, however, Morsi responded in a way that suggests less urgency than you might expect.

Egyptian presidential candidate Mohammed Morsi gave an interview on Dream 2 on Thursday evening.

“I don’t consider this a military coup,” he said, responding to a question about the Constitutional Court’s decision to dismiss the entire parliament. “I love the military forces,” he said.

That’s not exactly going to endear Morsi to the Egyptians who, already very reluctantly, see him as the only thing standing between a full counter-revolution that would enshrine his opponent, Ahmed Shafiq, a former Air Force commander and Mubarak’s last prime minister, as president, with no constitution and no parliament, with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces now asserting its control over parliamentary powers and re-introducing elements of emergency law.

Morsi and the Brotherhood confirmed that Morsi will not withdraw from the race, which threatens to be overshadowed by Thursday’s ruling by the Supreme Constitutional Court that invalidated the election of one-third of the parliamentary seats and seemed poised to launch yet another set of elections for Egypt’s parliament.  Protesters have already arrived at Tahrir Square.

Meanwhile, Mohammed ElBaradei, a respected secular elder statesman and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who withdrew from the presidential election in protest late last year and who has called for boycotting the race, said that the SCAF should postpone this weekend’s presidential runoff.

One potential reason for Morsi’s relative calm? Al Ahram suggested yesterday that the SCAF and the Brotherhood have been privately discussing post-election scenarios, and also suggests that the recent breakthrough on the Constituent Assembly (the group that will write Egypt’s constitution) can be chalked up to these negotiations: Continue reading Morsi responds to Egypt parliament’s dissolution →

Egypt

The SCAF strikes back a day before Egypt’s presidential runoff

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UPDATE: Marc Lynch has a must-read on why this is (probably) the end of the ‘transition’:

But 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. 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.

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It’s a little hard to know what to make of today’s decision by Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court not to disqualify Ahmed Shafiq from the presidential race (not surprising), but also to invalidate one-third of the seats in the People’s Assembly, thereby dissolving the entire lower house of parliament (surprising).

I think it’s safe to say Tahrir Square is going to be packed tomorrow and throughout the weekend with protestors bitterly opposed to this latest development by a court that’s primarily composed of judges appointed in the Mubarak era.

Make no mistake, the Supreme Constitutional Court represents the Egyptian ‘deep state’ to which so many refer in hushed terms — there simply remain in Egypt’s government many, many remaining sources of power connected to the Mubarak regime.

It certain appears to be a move by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to assert its power, in the face of the Muslim Brotherhood controlling 235 of 508 seats in the now-dissolved parliament and perhaps likely to win this weekend’s presidential election as well under Mohammed Morsi’s candidacy.

In declaring Shafiq eligible for the presidency, the Supreme Constitutional Court declared that the Political Isolation Law — which bars former Mubarak officials from running for office for ten years — is unconstitutional.

SCAF will be taking over parliamentary duties with immediate effect, although prior acts of the parliament will not be anulled.

It’s hard to know, though, whether this is the beginning of a more run-of-the-mill military coup.  It still seems like the SCAF is trying to play the same role in Egypt that the Turkish military played for so many years — a counterweight to rising Islamism and a “guardian” of the secular state.  Yesterday, the justice ministry issued a decree allowing military and intelligence to arrest citizens suspected of crimes, restoring in part some of its powers under Egypt’s emergency law.

So the outcome is not looking too good right now for Egypt’s revolution.

It’s worth, however, stepping back for a moment to consider where Egypt stands:

  • It seems likely that Egypt will hold the third set of parliamentary elections since last winter.  The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist Al-Nour Party are currently, by far, the largest and second-largest blocs in a parliament that’s done fairly little since it was elected, except for squabbling. In the January elections,  the Brotherhood won 235 seats under the banner of the newly formed Freedom and Justice Party, the Salafists won 121 seats, and the secular New Wafd Party and the secular liberal Egpytian Block won 38 and 35 seats, respectively.
  • If Shafiq wins the presidency this weekend, his detractors (of which there are many) will suspect that SCAF-engineered fraud had much to do with it.  If Morsi wins the presidency this weekend, it will be seen not as a mandate for the Muslim Brotherhood, but now more than ever a vote against the SCAF and the Mubarak regime.
  • Regardless of whether Shafiq or Morsi wins this weekend, no one knows whether the presidency will truly be powerful or not, because Egypt still has no constitution.
  • Furthermore, no one knows whether the deal struck just last weekend for the Constituent Assembly — the body that will draft the constitution — to be comprised 50-50 of Islamists and non-Islamists even still stands after today, since although it had previously been agreed by Egypt’s parliament, it hadn’t been signed by SCAF.

Maybe Mohamed ElBaradei was right to boycott the whole affair.