Turmoil in Post-Revolution Egypt

[Mr. Morden]

To be fair, that judiciary is the one that unilaterally disbanded the already-elected constituent assembly in order to please the SCAF.

Yes, but since Morsi is basically grabbing dictatorial powers for himself (first by claiming legislative powers for himself in August: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/08/did-egypts-president-just-make-himself-dictator/55698/ ), and now essentially grabbing judicial powers as well, he could, if he was really interested in ultimately transitioning to a real democracy, use those powers to set up some kind of interim legislative body that included all of the political factions.  Instead, he's basically saying "I'm a dictator until a new constitution is written".

Stuff like this is also not very encouraging:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5haKR8L0LFoHJeSh1-F0CannoXPdw?docId=CNG.e73eac565bdf00246753ad8987decb91.7a1

[Mr. Morden]

Didn't he reinstate the Assembly? They should be the ones writing the Constitution, logically.

Morsi ordered the Parliament to be reinstated a few months ago, in defiance of the court order.  But they only met for one day, for the purpose of setting up some kind of process for appealing the court's decision.  (It's been a while now, and I don't remember all the details.)  Then when Tantawi was forced out, Morsi claimed legislative powers for himself, as long as the Parliament was not in session.

Separate from that is the constitutional assembly, tasked with writing the new constitution.  I believe they've been meeting on and off for some time now, frequently plagued by both legal complaints and complaints that Islamists hold an effective majority.  In his latest orders, Morsi granted them more time to finish writing the constitution.

It looks like there's speculation that Morsi will now use his newly proclaimed powers to reinstate Parliament for good:

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/58946/Egypt/Politics-/New-decree-will-allow-Morsi-to-reinstate-Egypt-par.aspx

which would be welcome, since otherwise Morsi's powers would be completely unchecked.

[Mr. Morden]

The latest on this is that the (islamist majority) constitutional assembly tasked with writing the constitution is apparently within hours of releasing their proposed constitution.  They're rushing to get it done because the courts are reportedly set to declare to the constitutional assembly an illegal construct as early as Sunday.

So what could happen is that the assembly releases a proposed constitution (favored by Morsi and the islamists), the courts say "No, sorry, the process by which this constitution was drafted was illegal", but Morsi says "You don't have the power to rule on that.  We're putting the proposed constitution up for a vote in a referendum."

I believe the constitution would have to survive a referendum vote in order to go into effect, so I guess they can't afford to make it so extreme that it won't get enough popular support, but we'll see.  Also, if the courts keep saying that you can't put this up for a referendum but the government does it anyway, how will the referendum be conducted?  IIRC, in the presidential and parliamentary elections, judges presided over the voting process.

[Mr. Morden]

That constitution doesn't seem unexpectedly or even expectedly bad as such, assuming (a big if) it's enforced roughly as written, but that's more a reflection of the less-than-ideal current state of affairs than anything else.

Keep in mind, whatever they drafted had to be sufficiently watered down to be able to pass a nationwide referendum.  Even if they'd wanted to, they couldn't have written a constitution that would turn Egypt into a Sunni version of Iran, because it wouldn't get enough votes.

In any case, while many judges have called for a boycott, the supreme court seems to have cleared the way for the referendum to take place:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-egypt-referendum-constitutionbre8b20lc-20121203,0,5782065.story

So there will be a referendum on the 15th, and we'll see where things go from there.