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Interim Government Installed in Egypt; Constitution Suspended

Posted: Friday, July 5th, 2013 at 6:37 am

Less than two years after its revolution against Hosni Mubarak, Egypt is already facing another debilitating national crisis.  On July 3, 2013, the Egyptian military overthrew democratically elected Mohamed Morsi and established the head of the Constitutional Court, Adli Mansour, as interim president.  Morsi’s ousting marks a year almost exactly since he was elected as the face of the newly formed government and the attempt to draft a new constitution.
When Mohammad Morsi was sworn-in as President of Egypt on June 30, 2012, Western nations did not exactly know what to expect.  The Arab Spring of 2011 was widely viewed as a popular rejection of the authoritarian regimes that have persisted in the Middle East, and while then-“president” Mubarak’s resignation brought hope of a real democratic election, many Westerners saw it as unsettling that Egypt was likely to elect a well-known Islamist to the presidency.  Ultimately, it was the deep distrust between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, to which Morsi belonged to, and the secular opposition that made their democratic mandate of drafting a new constitution impossible.  The two sides fought over the significance of Islam in the new constitution as Morsi wanted to make a democratic constitution that used Muslim legal principles at its core and the secular population of Egypt felt uncomfortable with this.  Eventually, Morsi attempted to seize what many considered to be an excessive amount power to force his constitution into existence.  The Egyptian military then gave Morsi notice to either resign or be forcibly removed from office, and despite his resistance, Morsi was successfully detained and removed from office in July 2013.
Obviously, the issue is very complex and this is because of the history of tension and oppression in Egypt over the past two centuries.  Most recently, the Revolution of 1952 saw the military overthrowing the long-established monarchy only to establish their own authoritarian state that crushed dissent and promoted a secular society.  Nasser, the leader of the 1952 revolution, feared a state centered on religion and created a completely secular state and adhered to what he called “Arab Nationalism” that supplanted a value system based of Muslim values with one based on Arab values.  The parallels between the 1952 revolution and the 2013 outsting of Morsi appear to make the likelihood of true democracy flourishing in Egypt murky at best and we now have to wait and see as to what emerges from the dust.

Less than two years after its revolution against Hosni Mubarak, Egypt is already facing another debilitating national crisis.  On July 3, 2013, the Egyptian military overthrew democratically elected Mohamed Morsi and established the head of the Constitutional Court, Adli Mansour, as interim president.  Morsi’s ousting marks a year almost exactly since he was elected as the face of the newly formed government and the attempt to draft a new constitution.

When Mohammad Morsi was sworn-in as President of Egypt on June 30, 2012, Western nations did not exactly know what to expect.  The Arab Spring of 2011 was widely viewed as a popular rejection of the authoritarian regimes that have persisted in the Middle East, and while then-“president” Mubarak’s resignation brought hope of a real democratic election, many Westerners saw it as unsettling that Egypt was likely to elect a well-known Islamist to the presidency.  Ultimately, it was the deep distrust between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, to which Morsi belonged to, and the secular opposition that made their democratic mandate of drafting a new constitution impossible.  The two sides fought over the significance of Islam in the new constitution as Morsi wanted to make a democratic constitution that used Muslim legal principles at its core and the secular population of Egypt felt uncomfortable with this.  Eventually, Morsi attempted to seize what many considered to be an excessive amount power to force his constitution into existence.  The Egyptian military then gave Morsi notice to either resign or be forcibly removed from office, and despite his resistance, Morsi was successfully detained and removed from office in July 2013.

Obviously, the issue is very complex and this is because of the history of tension and oppression in Egypt over the past two centuries.  Most recently, the Revolution of 1952 saw the military overthrowing the long-established monarchy only to establish their own authoritarian state that crushed dissent and promoted a secular society.  Nasser, the leader of the 1952 revolution, feared a state centered on religion and created a completely secular state and adhered to what he called “Arab Nationalism” that supplanted a value system based of Muslim values with one based on Arab values.  The parallels between the 1952 revolution and the 2013 outsting of Morsi appear to make the likelihood of true democracy flourishing in Egypt murky at best and we now have to wait and see as to what emerges from the dust.

 

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