A look at the new Egyptian constitutional declaration. This is basically the direction the new administration wants to take in reshaping the Egyptian government.
In brief, it calls for:
- A referendum to amend the suspended 2012 constitution in around four months.
- Parliamentary elections to be called for 15 days after the success of the referendum.
- Presidential elections to be called for within a week of parliament going into session.
The referendum and the parliamentary and presidential elections could all be concluded under a year.
Remarkably, only the lower house of parliament is mentioned, suggesting that the upper house Shura council might be abolished altogether and is not in the current plans. The constitutional declaration also drops the specific stipulation of a 50% share of seats for workers and farmers in parliament, which proved to be problematic. Also, the express mentioning of popular presidential elections suggests that the general underlying intention is to have at least a hybrid political system of some sort.
They outline how the new constitution will be drafted; a ten member committee will write an early draft in about a month, seemingly with no influence beyond the current administration. At this point the draft is submitted to a 50 member assembly made up of representatives of various interests in Egypt. That group can suggest amendments but have no voting power. After two months of consultations the president receives a final draft and puts it up for a referendum a month later. Regarding the president;
The interim president, who is the constitutional court head, officially has absolute powers, including full legislative authority. The only two items, as I understand, where his powers are limited are using the emergency law (he must get cabinet approval in general, and must undertake a referendum in case of a second extension), and declaring war (must get the approval of the national security council, whose composition is yet to be determined by him). Of course, it is widely accepted that the military is the main center of power behind the presidency.
The main thrust of the article though is the continuing influence of the Al-Nour party. They are conservative Islamists of a Salafi outlook who took second place (as part of the Islamist Bloc) to the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party in the last elections, holding 111 seats in parliament. They had originally supported the coup after distancing themselves from Morsi and the Brotherhood, but withdrawn this support after the recent killings.
They do appear to be in a very strong negotiating position right now, and their influence seems to be deep in the new language.
They also indicate the bargaining power Salafists have right now (which increasingly appears to be bigger than what the military and the opposition had expected), with the Salafists realizing how their presence helps the military and the opposition maintain the image of a wide multi-ideological revolution rather than that an anti-Islamist uprising, and does not play into “it’s a war against Islam” claims by the Brotherhood and some Islamists. Thus, any real potential debate on the articles is ostensibly being temporarily delayed (rather than immediately tackled in the declaration) until later when things hopefully have calmed down a bit. This will likely be the major dividing point come amendments time.
On that topic, there is no return to a ban on religious political parties as there was in 1971, just on parties that discriminate by religion. Given the current strong legal push against the Muslim Brotherhood that wouldn't have surprised me. But I guess they are trying to focus specifically on the Brotherhood being the bad guys here, while suggesting that other Islamist parties might still have a place at the table.
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Topic: Middle Eastern/Central Asian Politics Megathread (Read 19285 times)