| Mursi’s move to challenge military may heighten tension in Egypt |
CAIRO Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi has ordered the return of the dissolved parliament, in a challenge to the powerful military that had enforced a court decision to disband the Islamist-led legislature.
Mursi on Sunday issued a presidential decree annulling the decision taken last month to dissolve the Peoples Assembly and invited the chamber to convene again.
Mursi’s move was likely to heighten tension with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which ruled the country after president Hosni Mubarak was toppled by a popular uprising and until Mursi was sworn in last month.
The SCAF, headed by Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, convened an urgent meeting “to discuss the presidential measures” state television said.
“Mursi says to SCAF: Check mate,” read the headline of the independent daily Al Watan, as Al Tahrir, another daily, declared “Mursi defeats SCAF.”
The move, described by some papers as a “political earthquake,” has also put Mursi on a collision course with the country’s judiciary and some secular parties.
“In any decent and democratic country, a president cannot disrespect the judiciary,” said Rifaat Al Said, the head of the leftist Al Tagammu party.
“Whether Mursi likes it or not, he must respect the judiciary’s decisions,” he told state television.
The powerful Muslim Brotherhood, from which Mursi stood down after his election, at the time described the move as a “soft coup,” accusing the military of seeking to monopolise power and demanding a referendum.
The Supreme Constitutional Court had said certain articles in the law governing parliamentary elections were invalid, annulling the Islamist-led house. It also ruled as unconstitutional the political isolation law, which sought to bar senior members of Mubarak’s regime and top members of his now-dissolved party from running for public office for 10 years.
Mursi beat Ahmed Shafiq - Mubarak’s last prime minister - in the presidential election.
The SCAF issued a constitutional declaration granting the military sweeping powers and in the absence of a parliament - in which nearly half of the seats had been won by the Muslim Brotherhood and another quarter by Salafists - it assumed legislative power. SCAF’s document, which rendered the president’s post toothless, had caused outrage among those calling for the military to return to their barracks.
Instead of being sworn in before parliament, the 60-year-old Mursi took the oath on June 30 before the constitutional court. US President Barack Obama will meet Egypt’s new president at the UN General Assembly in New York in September, an official in Washington said on Sunday.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is to visit Cairo on July 14, has congratulated Mursi on his election but cautioned that his victory was just a first step towards true democracy.
Despite Mursi’s Islamist background, the confirmation of his election brought relief to Obama’s administration, which feared that the military would not accept his victory and provoke new chaos in Egypt.
Mursi put Washington further at ease shortly after his victory announcement when he pledged to be a leader for all Egypt, where around 10 per cent of the population is Christian, and to honour the country’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
Agencies
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