June 15, 2012
Egyptian High Court Dissolves Parliament
Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court issued a ruling yesterday that mandated the dissolution of the country's popularly elected, Islamist-controlled parliament (NYT) due to an apparent misapplication of the rules for independent candidates. At the same time, the court ruled that Ahmed Shafiq--a former official in the ousted regime of Hosni Mubarak and the preferred candidate of the military-backed court--was eligible to run in this weekend's presidential runoff. Islamists, liberals, and some scholars called the joint rulings a "coup," as the Islamists refused to dissolve parliament and vowed to win the upcoming election.
Analysis
"The military has effectively closed the chapter of 'revolution' and ended hope that the Mubarak regime would be followed by a democratic political order. Whereas some Muslim Brotherhood leaders had spoken of Egypt's following the model of today's prosperous and relatively democratic Turkey (governed by moderate Islamists), the generals and their allies followed a different Turkish model: the 'deep state' Turkey of the past century, in which electoral politics were a sideshow," writes TIME's Tony Karon.
"What was new, and which likely emboldened this reckless behavior at the end of the transition, was its belief that it had effectively neutered revolutionary movements and protestors. The SCAF likely believes that a renewal of massive, sustained protest is no longer in the cards through a combination of its own repression and relentless propaganda, along with the strategic mistakes by protestors themselves," writes Marc Lynch for ForeignPolicy.com.
"Eighteen months after the ouster of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's presidential run-off between the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak's last prime minister and a former Air Force general, has morphed into a national identity crisis. It's a contest of power between political Islam and remnants of the Mubarak regime," writes Lauren Bohn for the Daily Beast.
