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Egyptian President Overthrown, Constitution Suspended
Al Jazeera and other publications are reporting that Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has been overthrown by the country's army. General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, head of the Egyptian armed forces, said in a televised announcement that Morsi had been removed from power, the Constitution had been suspended, and Adli al-Mansour, leader of Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court, had been appointed to lead the country until elections can be held. "Sisi called for presidential and parliamentary elections, a panel to review the constitution and a national reconciliation committee that would include youth movements. He said the roadmap had been agreed by a range of political groups." According to the BBC's report, "General Sisi said on state TV that the armed forces could not stay silent and blind to the call of the Egyptian masses," and "The army is currently involved in a show of force, fanning out across Cairo and taking control of the capital."
While the Egyptian Army is certainly no paragon of freedom (or battle prowess, but that's another story...), at least there is a formidable power in Egypt that leans toward secular sanity and against Islamist lunacy. Egypt could again one day stand with Turkey (for all its troubles) and Jordan as examples of modern, stable states among the insane theocracies that surround them.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
If you're not starting with a good constitution, preserving it isn't going to help. Egypt's most recent constitution was drafted entirely by Islamists after the secularists and Christians walked out when it was clear it was going to embody Sharia law and other Islamist practices at the expense of human rights.
John
The Egyptian army does seem to be reflecting the will of the Egyptian people in this case. Seems the recent theocracy wasn't actually any good at the nuts and bolts of running a country - and people to expect the government of a fairly modern country to provide basic services. Or at least that's how I interpret the army's statement that a "technocrat, capable national government will be formed" (quoting Al-Jaz).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Question for me is, will they replace it with something more effective? Technocratic benevolent dictatorships are a lot more attractive on paper than they turn out to be in real life.
And if the military intends to (again) establish a democracy, will the people just vote the Muslim Brotherhood back into power? I may not like Morsi but he was the democratically elected leader, with no more than the usual level of shenanigans in the election. (And given the shenanigans that show up in the US, I'm not going to throw too many stones. They're different, in both kind and degree, but we're hardly beyond reproach.)
Because the act of removing the president in this way is itself a violation of the constitution (I assume). The constitution has to be suspended in order for this extraordinary act to occur.
To give a hypothetical US example: let's say the people elect a President who turns out to be Literally Hitler, and has gotten Congress to back him (just like Hitler). So President Hitler and company prepare to conquer the world by force, much to the horror of the American people and the military. The people take to the streets, and the military leadership does not want to invade Mexico and Canada as ordered.
So, what do we do? The Constitution would have us wait for the next election cycle and vote these people out, but if we obey the constitution millions could be killed. Someone needs to do something, and the military is in the position to do it. The Joint Chiefs, with popular support, declare the Hitler government and congress to be disolved, and charges the Supreme Court with overseeing the creation and installation of a new government, because the Court is the only federal civil authority with any integrity.
None of that is even remotely authorized by the constitution, therefore the military tells us that "the constitution is suspended" in order to cary out this plan. That doesn't mean they go out and start violating every tenant of it, but they do have to violate parts (those which organize the government) in order to make it work.
Don't Bogart the fish sticks
Flawed they may be but the poit is to set the ground rules so people know what to do and have something to look to when things get crazy and emotion runs high. Frankly I agree with the parent, the fact that Egypt can't ride it out until the next election and then replace Morsi having learned a lesson about electing theocrats, suggests to me the nation is unlikely to develop the spine it takes to have a democracy and keep it .
More likely they realized that if they didn't act soon, they wouldn't be able to act at all.
Read the excellent post on CNN from Chariman of the History department in Cairo. He viewed Morsy as his President, he really tried.
Quoting:
The Brotherhoodization policy has gone way beyond what is normally expected in any healthy transitional process. In addition to the provincial governors -- who are gradually being replaced by Brotherhood members -- the Police Academy is reportedly being infiltrated by members of the clandestine organization. Within the Ministry of Education, replacements have reached the level of school principals. And the new Minister of Culture has replaced the head of the Cairo Opera House, dismissed the head of the Cairo Ballet Company, the head of the Egyptian Book Authority (the largest government publishing house) , and the director of the National Library and the National Archives. The new appointees have no credentials except being members or sympathizers of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Its quite telling for an Islamic Majority Nation to step back from the Islamification of everyday life. Far from not "riding it out", waiting for an election that would in all likelihood never happen, they demanded Morsy's ouster, and set about bringing to fulfillment the revolution that was hijacked by Islam.
Even in the US, the Declaration of Independence wasn't followed immediately by the Constitution. We had the failed Articles of Confederation, which was barely sufficient to see us through the War of Independence, but couldn't govern the nation in times of Peace. The major difference is our War was so long (9 years) and so brutal that any remaining disagreement wasn't about the political ideology, but rather the apparatus.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.