Is the Arab Spring revolution in Egypt dead?

 The armed forces council (SCAF) is in control in Egypt. The president is a Muslim Brotherhood member. The secular and liberal protesters who led the revolution are sidelined. Egyptians seek order and security rather than revolution and democracy.

    The newly elected president Mohamed Morsi challenged the ruling military council (SCAF) by issuing a decree that annuls the decision by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to dissolve parliament. SCAF dissolved the parliament after the Constitutional Court ruled that there were irregularities in the election that violated the constitution. President Morsi also ordered that the parliament reconvene on Tuesday (July 10) The military council did not prevent the parliament from convening. Surely this is a sign that there are behind the scenes negotiations on what is to be allowed. 

    The substance of the meeting is also of interest. Parliament Speaker Saad el-Katatni told lawmakers that the legislature met to find ways to implement the court ruling rather than debate it out of respect for the principles of “the supremacy of the law and separation of authorities.” Clearly the parliament is not directly attacking the court ruling although the very fact that the parliament is meeting at all conflicts with the military order that dissolved parliament. Nevertheless the army is willing to allow this symbolic act as part of a delicate dance with the Muslim Brotherhood. For its part the SCAF has repeated its own position that the armed forces sided with the "constitution, legitimacy, and law". Both the Muslim Brotherhood and SCAF are key players in the new Egypt. Neither will bring about any radical change and both are committed to neoliberal policies. 

    The Muslim Brotherhood is long established in Egypt although under Mubarak leaders were often jailed including now president Morsi. The Brotherhood's political clout is due to its integral connection to many in Egyptian society especially the less well off. ""The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has more than three hundred thousand members and runs numerous institutions, including hospitals, schools, banks, businesses, foundations, day care centers, thrift shops, social clubs, and facilities for the disabled.""
 The army is connected to the economy through ownership and management of economic enterprises. The exact degree of the armed forces involvement is unknown but certainly significant. ""The army is known to manufacture everything from olive oil and shoe polish to the voting booths used in Egypt’s 2011 parliamentary elections,.....News reports have cited “expert” estimates that are all over the map, from 5 percent to 40 percent or more. ...Not only are army holdings classified as state secrets -- reporting on them can land a journalist in jail -- but they are also too vast and dispersed to estimate with any confidence. The army some time ago seized power"". As this article in the Huffington Post notes: """SCAF boldly and unambiguously asserted sweeping political and military powers: complete control over its own affairs (including control and continued secrecy around the use of over $1 billion in annual military aid from the United States), complete control over its own affairs, including budgetary autonomy as well as the ability to wage war without presidential or parliamentary approval; extraordinary powers of arrest over civilians; immediate assumption of legislative authority; defining and limiting the executive authority of the president; and overseeing the writing of Egypt's new constitution""
  President Morsi was elected without a job description. He is now trying to wrest some power from the military so that he can have some influence in the new Egypt. Certainly it is preferable to being in jail. With the transition to the new Egypt being controlled by SCAF along with the Muslim Brotherhood it would seem that the revolution and any hope of a transition to a modern secular democracy is unlikely. However, not everyone is pessimistic. Mark LeVine a professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of California Irvine thinks that the situation in Egypt is actually positive for liberals, secularists, and the democratic revolution. LeVine argues that at least those fighting for a democratic and secular Egypt have not sold out and joined what is in effect the same state apparatus as under Mubarak. He also argues that the Brotherhood in league with the military will not be able to provide a positive future for Egypt. They will fail and the people will turn to the real opposition movement. Now he argues is the opportunity for activists to begin the arduous task of grass roots organizing.
    In the long run LeVine may be correct but for the immediate future we are witnessing the army trying to incorporate the Muslim Brotherhood into their power system without yielding much. The presidential election itself tells us that many Egyptians prefer the security of an armed forces based regime as they voted for a representative of the Mubarak in just slightly less numbers than for Morsi the Muslim Brotherhood representative. The revolution may not be dead but it urgently needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. 

Egyptian parliament dissolved.

After a long electoral process the results have been summarily negated by the Egyptian high court. The court ruled that a third of the seats involved invalid results. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces then stepped in and announced that if one part of the parliamentary representatives are illegal then the whole parliament must be dissolved. So the military are back to ruling on their own. This is bound to provoked even more protest and divisions within Egypt.

The Egyptian constitutional court ruled against a law that would have barred the former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq from running in the presidential runoff. Shafiq said:"The message of this historic verdict is that the era of political score settling has ended," "The constitutional court has confirmed my right to participate in the election and reinforced the legitimacy of this election." Rather it seems the court is trying to facilitate the continuation of the old guard rule.

At the same time as these court rulings the justice ministry that gives the military police and intelligence officers power to arrest people suspected of crimes and restoring many of the powers given to police under the emergency laws that had only expired two weeks ago. The decree would apply to destruction of property obstructing traffic and resisting orders. The decree seems designed to crack down on protesters among other things. The decree is to remain in effect until a new constitution is drafted. For more see this article.

Islamic groups dominate process to choose panel to draft constitution

Parliamentarians are meeting to choose a 100 member group that will draft a new Egyptian constitution. Fifty members of the panel will be sitting parliamentarians.

An Al Jazeera correspondent noted:"We have over 1,000 names that have been nominated. It's up to these hundreds of MPs to whittle them down to just 100.Fifty of that 100-member constituent assembly will be sitting parliamentarians and the other 50 will be trade unionists, members of civil society and so on,"

The Islamist Muslim Brotherhood gained the majority of seats in recent elections to parliament. The Salafist Islamist Nour Party also did very well. As a result it is expected of the 50 parliamentarians to be chosen about 40 will be Islamists. No doubt there could be many Islamists within the other fifty as well. All combined , liberal Egyptian parties have less than one third of parliamentary seats.

A leader of the liberal Justice Party walked out of the sessions when his proposal that 25 seats be reserved in the constituent assembly for public figures was rejected. This move seems to make little sense. If a majority is opposed to what you propose then you lose. That is the way the democratic system works.

The Muslim Brotherhood claims it wants representatives from all groups and parties. It probably does but naturally it would like also to retain majority control.

Liberals are up in arms over what is happening. In spite of the fact that Islamist groups won handily in the elections it seems to me that the liberals really cannot accept that decision by the voting public.

Liberal activists and judges are filing suit to challenge the decision to appoint half of the members of the constituent assembly from the sitting parliamentarians. Khaled Fahmy from the American University in Cairo said:"This can actually result in a very tilted constitution that reflects the interests of only one segment of the population, which is the Islamists," No doubt the Islamists will try to tailor the constitution to their beliefs, beliefs that must be shared by a large number of Egyptians. Of course liberals dislike those beliefs because they conflict with theirs! See this article for more. The Egyptian people ultimately get to vote on whether they approve the constitution or not in a referendum.

Egypt: Parliament set to vote no confidence in military appointed prime minister and cabinet.

The Freedom and Justice Party will introduce a motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri and his cabinet. However, under the existing system the parliamentary vote would not be binding.

What happens after the vote passes will be interesting. Ganzouri has ties with the Mubarak regime. The FJP linked to the Muslim Brotherhood won a landslide victory in parliament and have expectations that they should form the government.

Perhaps the military junta will negotiate some sort of resolution to the situation. It is unlikely that junta would allow the parliament simply to vote in a new prime minister but perhaps they would be willing to work out a deal that could then be ratified by the parliament. For more see this article.