New Political Showdown in Egypt as Court Invalidates Parliament
Egypt’s Judges and Generals Dissolve Parliament: Is the Revolution Now Truly Over?
The coup d’etat that began 18 months ago in Egypt with the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak initially camouflaged itself in the language of “revolution” and promises of democracy, even as it worked to prevent the collapse of the old order and divide and conquer its challengers. But Thursday’s rulings by the Supreme Constitutional Court have shed the “revolutionary” disguise: Egypt will be effectively ruled by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces junta and its backers in the bureaucracy and judiciary until further notice.
Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled that the Islamist-led Parliament must be immediately dissolved, while also blessing the right of Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister to run for president, escalating a battle for power between the remnants of the toppled order and rising Islamists.
The high court, packed with sympathizers of the ousted president, appeared to be engaged in a frontal legal assault on the Muslim Brotherhood, the once-outlawed organization whose members swept to power in Parliament this spring and whose candidate was the front-runner for the presidency as well. The presidential election runoff is scheduled to go ahead Saturday and Sunday.
“Egypt just witnessed the smoothest military coup,” Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, wrote in an online commentary. “We’d be outraged if we weren’t so exhausted.”The ruling means that whoever emerges as the winner of the runoff will take power without the check of a sitting Parliament and could even exercise some influence over the election of a future Parliament. It vastly compounds the stakes in the presidential race, raises questions about the governing military council’s commitment to democracy, and makes uncertain the future of a constitutional assembly recently formed by Parliament as well.
The decision, which dissolves the first freely elected Parliament in Egypt in decades, supercharges a building conflict between the court, which is increasingly presenting itself as a check on Islamists’ power, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The ruling, by the highest judicial authority in Egypt, cannot be appealed and it was not clear how the military council, which has been governing Egypt since Mr. Mubarak’s downfall in February 2011, would respond. But in anticipation that the court’s ruling could anger citizens, the military authorities reimposed martial law on Wednesday.
In the weeks before the first round of presidential voting, Parliament had passed a law banning Ahmed Shafik, who was Mr. Mubarak’s last prime minister, and other top officials of the Mubarak government from seeking the presidency. The law was previously set aside by a panel of Mubarak-appointed judges and on Thursday was ruled unconstitutional by the high court.
At the same time, however, the ruling raised new questions about the presidential runoff itself. Although the court did not invalidate Mr. Shafik’s candidacy, some argued Thursday that it may have raised new questions about the candidacy of his opponent, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The ruling may have had the effect of invalidating Mr. Morsi’s nomination, which relied on his party’s presence in Parliament.
The Egyptian state media reported that a senior member of the court, Judge Maher Sami, said the ruling would require the immediate breakup and re-election of the Brotherhood-led Parliament, and that the application of the decision could also make it harder for the Brotherhood to re-establish its current sizable plurality.
The ruling was immediately criticized by advocates for a transition to democracy and civilian rule.
“From a democratic perspective, it is the worst possible outcome imaginable,” said Shadi Hamid, research director of the Brookings Doha Center. “The democratically elected Parliament was the biggest step in Egypt’s transition, and this casts the entire transition into doubt. It is an anti-democratic decision.”
“This is an all-out power grab by the military,” he added. “Egypt witnessed a coup today, I think it is fair to say.”
The question at issue in the high court’s decision was the application of a rule setting aside two-thirds of the seats in Parliament for selection by a system of party lists, also known as proportional representation. The other third was reserved for individual candidates competing in winner-take-all races.
Other authorities had decided before the parliamentary election that parties could run their members under their banners as candidates for the individual seats as well as the party list seats, but the court ruled Thursday that the parties should not have been allowed to compete for those seats, and so the results were invalid.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, as the largest and strongest, stands to lose the most from the ruling. As many as 100 of its 235 seats in the 508-member assembly were elected as individual candidates running under its banner. If it lost all of those seats, the Brotherhood would still control the largest bloc in the chamber, and together with the ultraconservative Salafi parties Islamists would still command a majority. But the Brotherhood’s leadership of the chamber would be much less decisive.
A senior Brotherhood official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said leaders of the Freedom and Justice Party were meeting to consider the party’s response. The official said all possible responses included refusing to immediately dissolve Parliament and rejecting the decision as legally baseless. He also said the party was considering withdrawing Mr. Morsi from the presidential runoff, to invalidate its legitimacy.It was also unclear whether the ruling might force the dissolution of a recently formed 100-member panel picked by Parliament to write a new constitution. Many of its members were chosen because of their position as members of Parliament. The panel was selected only days ago after tense negotiations between the Brotherhood and smaller liberal parties. With Parliament dissolved, administrative courts might strike down the panel, raising questions about how a new panel could be named.
Nor was it clear Thursday how the Muslim Brotherhood or the leaders of the dissolved Parliament would respond to the decision.
The Brotherhood and others in Parliament had passed a law banning top Mubarak government officials like Mr. Shafik from seeking the presidency because they feared that such candidates could reactivate the powerful networks of businessmen, former military officers and security officials who thrived under Mr. Mubarak’s party, then push to replicate Mr. Mubarak’s style of government as well. But election authorities set aside the law, pending review by the constitutional court.
Mr. Shafik has indeed revived some of those old networks among the old elite, campaigning as a strongman who can reimpose order on the streets and stand as a bulwark to the Islamist Parliament. A former air force general and then minister of aviation, he was long considered for at least a decade an inside candidate to succeed Mr. Mubarak within his autocratic, one-party system, and Mr. Shafik has made no secret of his admiration for his former boss.
When r Mr. Shafik and Mr. Morsi advanced to the runoff after the first round of voting — each with just under a quarter of the vote — many Egyptians were shocked to find themselves with a choice between the two polarizing throwbacks to the Mubarak era: the last chief of Mr. Mubarak’s government and a conservative leader of the old Islamist opposition.
Many liberal activists and some Islamists began petitioning the court to strike Mr. Shafik from the race in part to block his ascent. Some hoped for a ruling that would require a do-over of the first round in the hope that a less divisive or less conservative candidate might emerge. Many analysts and political activists reasoned that the Mubarak-appointed court might seek to block Mr. Shafik because a do-over that produced a less polarizing alternative might present stiffer competition to Mr. Morsi.
The most likely outcome of the weekend’s runoff, if it takes place, remains a subject of intense debate here, with no reliable polls to shed light on the odds. If Mr. Shafik wins, he is likely to face immediate doubts — whether justified or not — about the possibility that elements of the old Mubarak government improperly assisted him to the victory. He also faces pending corruption charges related to his role in the Mubarak government. But by validating his candidacy, the court’s ruling has cleared away at least one potential hurdle to his legitimacy.
Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting.
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Health of Egypt's Mubarak deteriorates in prison
"Egypt has sold me out. They want me to die here."
FILE - In this June 2, 2012 file photo, Egypt's ex-President Hosni Mubarak lies on a gurney inside a barred cage in the police academy courthouse in Cairo, during a hearing in which he was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the killing of protesters during the revolution in the spring of 2011. An Egyptian security official says Mubarak has been slipping in and out of consciousness, more than a week after he was transferred to a hospital inside a Cairo prison to serve his life sentence. The official says Mubarak's wife, former first lady Suzanne Mubarak, and her two daughters-in-law were visiting him in prison Sunday, June 10, 2012, after rumors circulated that he had died. (AP Photo, File)
Hosni Mubarak's health worsened Monday, with doctors twice having to use a defibrillator on the imprisoned former leader, adding to the tumult in Egypt before this weekend's runoff election for president.
Mubarak, 84, was slipping in and out of consciousness, was suffering from high blood pressure and breathing difficulties, and was in a deep depression, according to security officials at Torah prison where he is serving a life sentence. Doctors there could not find a pulse twice, and used the defibrillator, they said.
The deposed leader, who was being given liquids intravenously, also lost consciousness several times Sunday.
His health crisis came at time of political anxiety in Egypt, with a former prime minister from the Mubarak regime facing an Islamist in a showdown at the ballot box on June 16-17.
"He is causing everyone a headache," said Ahmed Badawi, a liberal activist who participated in last year's Arab Spring uprising that ousted Mubarak. "There are daily rumors that he died and where he is held is also a thorny issue. He is definitely feeding the nervousness we are all living in these days."
Mubarak has been held in the intensive care ward of the prison hospital south of Cairo since June 2, when he was convicted of failing to prevent the killing of protesters in the February 2011 uprising. He was sentenced to life in prison.
His two sons, onetime heir apparent Gamal and wealthy businessman Alaa, were at his bedside, the security officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The sons also are being held at the prison, awaiting trial on insider trading charges after they and their father were acquitted June 2 of corruption charges.
Mubarak's death would bring down the curtain on a chapter of Egypt's modern history that has divided this mainly Muslim nation of 85 million people. That legacy is alive today through the Shafiq-Morsi rivalry: Shafiq, a self-confessed admirer of Mubarak, is pitted against Morsi, a U.S.-trained engineer who belongs to a group that the ousted leader spent most of his time in office cracking down on it.
Mubarak's 29 years in power are the second longest by any ruler of Egypt since the 19th century, when the Ottoman general Mohammed Ali ruled the country for about 44 years ending with his death in 1849. While Mohammed Ali went down in history as the founder of modern Egypt, Mubarak's rule has been defined by corruption, police brutality and the behind-the-scenes rise to power by a coterie of regime-backed businessmen.
But Mubarak's demise could be a gift to the next president as well as the generals.
For example, where Mubarak is held -- he was detained in hospital suites from the time of his arrest in April 2011 -- has been and is likely to continue to be a divisive issue, with many Egyptians accusing authorities of showing him too much reverence. Others continue to see him as a decorated war hero whose old age and service to Egypt are grounds for leniency.
The issue is even more sensitive to the generals, who are led by Mubarak's defense minister of 20 years and who owe their ascent to his patronage. A pardon for Mubarak or a transfer back to a military hospital -- a luxury when compared to his prison hospital -- would confirm long held suspicions by revolutionaries that the generals have only grudgingly ordered his arrest and that they remain loyal to him.
Mubarak would not get a military or a state funeral if he dies now, since his conviction meant that he is stripped of military rank and any claim to special treatment as a former president.
"The generals will breathe easier if he is gone," said Michael W. Hanna, an Egypt expert from New York's Century Foundation. "The ongoing saga about his health, the prospect of him getting an acquittal on appeal, that is all very destabilizing and they have to deal with it."
In his last public appearance at his June 2 sentencing, the bedridden Mubarak sat stone-faced in the defendants' cage in the courtroom, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses. Officials said he broke into tears when he learned he was being transferred to a prison. It took officials hours to convince him to leave the helicopter that ferried him from the courthouse to the prison.
Media reports quoted Mubarak at the time as saying the military council who took over after his ouster had deceived him. "Egypt has sold me out. They want me to die here," he reportedly said.
