Egypt's supreme court dissolves parliament and outrages Islamists
Two days before the second round of presidential elections, Egypt's highest court on Thursday dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament and ruled that the army-backed candidate could stay in the race, in what was widely seen as a double blow for the Muslim Brotherhood. The decision was denounced as a coup by opposition leaders of all kinds and many within the Brotherhood, who fear that they will lose much of the political ground they have gained since Hosni Mubarak was ousted 16 months ago.
The decision by the supreme constitutional court – whose judges were appointed by Mubarak – brought into sharp focus the power struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the supreme council of the armed forces (Scaf), the military council that took up the reins of power after Mubarak's fall. The Brotherhood has now lost its power base in parliament, at the same time as seeing the military-backed candidate, Ahmad Shafiq, the last president to serve under Mubarak, receive a boost. Supporters of the Brotherhood, liberals and leftwing activists were united in their outrage at what they saw as a carefully engineered move by Scaf to keep a hold on power. It was denounced by senior Brotherhood MP Mohamed el-Beltagy as a "fully fledged coup".
Dr Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a centrist former presidential candidate, echoed that sentiment. "Keeping the military candidate [in the race] and overturning the elected parliament after granting the military police the right to arrest is a complete coup and whoever thinks that millions of youth will let it pass is deluding themselves," he said in a statement on his Facebook page. Other politicians went further, saying the decision spelt the end of the revolution. Saad Aboud of the Karama (Dignity) party told the Guardian: "This is a politicised verdict that constitutes a coup in political life. With the other verdict allowing Shafiq to continue in the race, today means the death of the revolution, and it is now imperative that we reconstruct it."
Mohamed ElBaradei, a former head of the United Nations nuclear agency, warned: "The election of a president in the absence of a constitution and a parliament is the election of a president with powers that not even the most entrenched dictatorships have known."..
