It’s been a rocky year for Egyptians in 2012, but there
is some hope for the future. It started off well in January when parliament sat
for the first time, the army subsequently handed over legislative authority to
the parliament. This was a sight that Egypt may indeed be moving forward,
progress seemed to occur again when the presidential election took place.
Although people were not pleased with the choice in the second round of voting,
the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi and ex-dictator Mubarak’s last
Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik. Things began to look a bit more like a rollercoaster
after that, later in June the army declared that it had picked the people who
would sit on a 100 member assembly that would draft a new constitution and the
next day it dissolved parliament. On the other hand on the 26th of
June the courts revoked a decree allowing military personnel the right to
arrest civilians and on the 30th the army handed power to the newly
elected President, Mohamed Morsi.
Right from the start Morsi faced problems, the economy
was (and still is) in tatters and foreign investors are wary of putting any
money into Egypt. Over the coming months there was a struggle between Morsi,
allied with the Islamists and Salafists, the army and a coalition of
secularists, Christians and women. Unfortunately for the final group they have
no power, they were outnumbered on the Constitutional Assembly and the
President is an Islamist. They fear the introduction of even parts of Sharia
Law, Coptic Christians account for 10% of Egypt’s 80 million citizens. The Army
hopes to remain powerful, and it may get its wish! When Morsi issued his
controversial decrees in November, one of them stated that the minister of
defence must come from the army. This basically means that army lacks civilian
oversight. The November decrees that broadened Morsi’s powers were met with
anger on the streets of Egypt as people feared a return to dictatorship.
The coalition of anti-Islamists decided to boycott the
referendum on the new constitution which led to the low turnout of only 33%. In
the end the constitution passed with around 64% of people voting to adopt it. Next
year will be very important for the direction of the country, whether it does
liberalise as many people had hoped originally or does it go down the route of
Sharia law?
 |
| A poster comparing Morsi to Mubarak source: theatlantic.com |
No comments:
Post a Comment