In scenes reminiscent of the mass demonstrations that brought about the downfall of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in early 2011, thousands of protestors have retaken to the streets in increasingly heated protests over the past two weeks.
Five people were killed and 446 injured in clashes between pro- and anti-Morsy demonstrators outside the presidential palace in Cairo, the Egyptian health ministry said Thursday, as tanks rolled into the area in an attempt to disperse protesters.
What’s behind the latest unrest?
The protests were sparked by a November 22 presidential decree issued by President Mohamed Morsy — the first freely elected leader of this country of 83 million — which prevented any court from overturning his decisions until a new, post-Mubarak constitution was passed.
The ruling has essentially given him unchecked power, protecting from judicial review any decisions he has made since assuming office.
What was Morsy’s rationale?
Insisting the order is temporary — it will last only until a new constitution is put in place — Morsy claimed the move was intended to safeguard the revolution. He said the edict would only apply to “sovereign” matters.
In particular, Morsy said, the edict was aimed at preventing interference from the courts in the work of Egypt’s Constituent Assembly, the body charged with drafting a new constitution.
The judges, many of whom were holdover loyalists from the government of Mubarak, are widely viewed as hostile to the Islamists who now dominate the assembly that has been charged with framing a new constitution. Some had threatened to shut down the assembly.
Morsy’s move, which has concentrated power in the hands of the executive, is a continuation of the power struggles between Morsy’s Muslim Brotherhood — the Islamist movement that is Egypt’s most powerful political force and won nearly half the seats in parliamentary elections — and the remnants of the military-dominated establishment of the Mubarak years.
In June, just weeks before Morsy’s election, Egypt’s military leaders declared parliament invalid and dissolved the body, a ruling which was upheld by Egypt’s highest court in September. After his election, Morsy defied the military leadership by calling parliament into session. Morsy’s edict ruled out the possibility of repeat interference.
In August, the president moved decisively against the military leadership, sending into retirement Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi — who, as Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, had acted as the country’s de facto ruler in the wake of Mubarak’s ouster and prior to Morsy’s election.
What has been the response to the presidential decree?
Morsy’s decree has sharply divided Egyptians. While the Muslim Brotherhood is standing by their man, holding large rallies to show support, many other Egyptians have seen the order as an alarming and undemocratic power grab — a lurch back towards an authoritarian style of leadership the country had only recently overthrown.
Left-leaning and liberal Egyptians — who had played a large part in the revolution but were sidelined by the success of Islamists in subsequent elections — made up a large component of the protestors in Tahrir Square. Many of their chants accused Morsy, the first democratically elected president, of becoming a “new pharaoh” and “dictator.”
“In some ways, the liberal and left-wing forces are trying to stake a claim to the revolution again through the protests,” Laleh Khalili, a reader in politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, told CNN.
The demonstrators, who have been calling on Morsy to resign, also included some of those sympathetic to the military and the old regime, she said.
Why has this come about now?
Morsy issued his edict the day after the November 21 cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, which he had played a central role in brokering.
Khalili said that, buoyed with new found political capital from his successful foray on the international stage, the Egyptian president may have miscalculated, underestimating the level of outrage his actions would provoke.
The anger on the streets, she said, also reflected a level of public dissatisfaction with progress made since the revolution in addressing issues of poverty and inequality in a country with an unemployment rate of more than 12%, a median age of about 24 years, and a per capita GDP of $6,500.
“Many of the original grievances behind the revolution were derived from questions around extreme inequality and corruption,” she said. “Those issues have not been addressed.”
The protests represented “a perfect storm of many grievances coming to the fore,” she said, and it was not clear how it would play out. “It’s a fundamental challenge to the legitimacy of the regime.”
What else was in the declaration?
Other aspects of Morsy’s edict are likely to prove popular with many of those who have taken to the streets against him.
In his decree, Morsy also announced that all deaths and violence connected to the uprising against Mubarak would be investigated again, with those responsible retried if necessary.
This raised the possibility that Mubarak, currently serving a life prison term, could be re-prosecuted, along with a number of regime figures who were previously acquitted.
Some Egyptians have expressed disappointment that security forces and officials have escaped punishment over last year’s violent crackdown on protestors.
Morsy also sacked the prosecutor-general in his declaration, and extended the timeline for drafting the constitution by two months.
But while those resolutions may be welcomed by many, the unilateral manner in which Morsy has gone about expanding his powers has alarmed many.
“It’s the way he’s doing it that has gotten people upset, because it reminds them of the way Mubarak used to govern,” Peter Jones, a Middle East expert at the University of Ottawa, told CNN.
One popular slogan during the current protests has been “Morsy is Mubarak.”
If Morsy’s new powers are only temporary, why the outrage?
Even if Morsy is good to his word and rescinds the decree after the new constitution is enacted, protesters claim he has used the edict to hijack the process in order to produce a document that reflects his Islamist vision and consolidates his power in the new Egypt.
Liberal, left-wing and Christian members of assembly boycotted the body over concerns that their views were not being given enough consideration by Islamists — with many of them subsequently replaced by Islamists.
What is happening with the constitution now?
The Islamist-dominated assembly has now passed a finalized 234-article draft of the constitution, which is due to go for a public vote on December 15.
But there has been sharp opposition to the document, with critics fearing it could lead to excessive restrictions on certain rights, and objecting to the way it was drafted.
“(Morsy) put to referendum a draft constitution that undermines basic freedoms & violates universal values,” wrote Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel laureate and head of the liberal Constitution Party, on his Twitter account. “The struggle will continue.”
Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said that “moving a flawed and contradictory draft to a vote is not the right way to guarantee fundamental rights or to promote respect for the rule of law.”
The draft constitution maintains the principles of sharia as the main source of legislation — a position unchanged from the constitution under Mubarak.
But Mohamed Naeem, a member of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, said he fears the proposed constitution would open the way for a theocracy by moving the country even closer to codifying sharia law.
The United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, urged Morsy to reconsider the draft, saying a number of measures contained in it are incompatible with international human rights law. She called them “not yet sufficient.”
Where is it all going?
Morsy’s power struggles with the judiciary have continued to escalate, with Islamist protesters surrounding the country’s supreme constitutional court at the weekend and forcing it to suspend its sessions indefinitely.
The court had been due to rule on the validity of the constitutional assembly tasked with drafting the constitution, but the judges were unable to enter the court premises.
In subsequent days, anti-Morsy protestors turned the tables, conducting mass demonstrations outside the presidential palace and forcing the president to leave through a back door.
Independent newspapers and television stations have also made a stand against Morsy and the draft constitution, falling silent for two days in protest, while Egypt’s highest religious authority, Al Azhar, has urged the president to postpone the December 15 referendum on the new constitution. Five of the president’s advisers have resigned over the crisis.
ElBaradei has said opposition leaders are prepared to holds talks with Morsy if he withdraws his power-grabbing decree and delays the referendum.
But Morsy’s administration has said the referendum will proceed as scheduled, while the Muslim Brotherhood has blamed opposition leaders for escalating the violence.
first Published by CNN
Leave a Reply