On the fourth day of protests that toppled democratically elected Mohamed Morsi this past July, a new transitional period was launched by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s declaration of a roadmap. The official announcement was made in the presence of Head of the Salvation Front as well as representatives of Tamarod Movement, al-Nour Salafist Party (the second largest Islamic party in the country) and official religious Islamic and Christian institutions, in addition to a number of military leaders.
On the fourth day of protests that toppled democratically elected Mohamed Morsi this past July, a new transitional period was launched by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s declaration of a roadmap. The official announcement was made in the presence of Head of the Salvation Front as well as representatives of Tamarod Movement, al-Nour Salafist Party (the second largest Islamic party in the country) and official religious Islamic and Christian institutions, in addition to a number of military leaders.
El-Sisi’s roadmap did not explicitly refer to removing former president Morsi, but it indicated early elections, Sisi’s new role as interim president, Adly Mansour as Head of the Supreme Constitutional Court with the authorization to issue constitutional declarations in addition to temporarily suspending the 2012 Constitution until its amendment by a committee that includes all parties and required expertise.
The statement also indicated the formation of a national technocrat government to manage the transitional period, setting executive measures to appoint a number of Egyptian youth as assistants for ministers as well as governors, issued a media code of conduct without assigning a defined body and created a committee for national reconciliation without naming its members.
According to the road map and the constitutional declaration, the prime minister of the interim government shall undertake the day-to-day management of the country. The interim president shall practice honorary and procedural tasks mostly after mandating the prime minister with most of his authorities. Actually, the Ministry of Defense supported by the Ministry of Interior shall undertake the entire security file. According to many analysts, Lieutenant General el-Sisi, who has received many calls and initiatives demanding him to nominate himself for presidency, shall undertake strategic decisions concerning the transitional period in general and be entitled to veto any decisions.
The constitutional declaration
The declaration also called for a referendum to amend the suspended 2012 Constitution, undertaken by a committee tasked with the amendment and the timeframe of the transitional period sequence in addition to constitutional, parliamentary and presidential election. Most importantly, the declaration granted the executive authority only limited powers with regards to using the emergency law— the interim president is entitled to impose the law for a period of three months without a referendum while cabinet approval as well as a referendum are required in case of a second extension.
The ten-member committee
A ten-member committee will be tasked with amending the 2012 Constitution. The committee is composed of four constitutional law professors– nominated by the supreme council of universities – and six top judges, two of whom are members of The Supreme Constitutional Court, two of the regular judiciary and two members from the state council – nominated by members of the supreme councils of the judicial authorities.
This committee will submit its first draft to the fifty-member constitutional amendments committee.
The fifty-member committee
The fifty-member committee is a non-elected assembly representing all segments of society including the police, military, youth, farmers, religious institutions, national councils, public figures and unions. Each group, through its main official body, nominated its representative while public figures were nominated by the cabinet.
Al-Azhar nominated three representatives. Egyptian Churches nominated three representatives from the main Christian sects (Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelic). Youth representatives included one from the Tamarod Campaign, another from the 25 January Youth and two activists representing the June 30 uprising. Political parties afforded two representatives from the liberal parties (Wafd and the Social Democratic Egyptian parties), one representative of the Islamist parties (al-Nour Salafist Party), one representative from the left-wing parties (Tagamoa Party) and one representative from the national trend parties (Karama Party). The other 35 members are representatives of labor syndicates (two members), vocational syndicates (four members), art syndicates union, supreme council of universities, armed forces, police, national councils for women and human rights, commerce and industrial chambers, civil society organizations, Egyptian students, writers syndicate, special needs persons, supreme council of culture and the formative art sector.
Timeframe of transitional period sequence
According to the constitutional declaration, the ten-member committee shall submit proposals of constitutional amendments to the fifty-member committee within sixty days from the date it receives the first draft. The interim president shall submit the draft of the constitutional amendments to public referendum within thirty days of the date he receives it. Amendments shall be effective as of the date of announcing the people’s approval in the referendum. The president shall call for electing the House of Representatives within fifteen days of this date to hold elections in a period not less than a month and not exceeding two months, and the call for holding presidential elections should be within a week at most of the first convening of the House of Representatives. Accordingly, presidential elections shall be held in the spring of 2014.
Political parties
The constitutional declaration of former president Morsi issued in November 2012 has established a new period of alliances distribution in the Egyptian political scene, leading to polarization between two main entities: the first pole supports the position of the Muslim Brotherhood while the other is the opposition represented by the National Salvation Front. Such polarization has continued since Morsi’s ouster.
The Muslim Brotherhood and affiliates: The Party, Association and National Alliance for Legitimacy Support
Other than forming the guidance bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood, no precise information is available about the number of its members where newcomers are only nominated by the senior ones. No information is available about the group’s financial resources other than the knowledge of a number of economic enterprises mainly managed by the Deputy Supreme Guide Khairat el-Shater and Haddad Family. There is no official or non-official inventory of the assets and enterprises owned by the group. Thus, the ruling to ban the Muslim Brotherhood, which was issued for the first time in 1954 and has been in effect for about six decades seems ineffective.
Following the revolution of January 25, 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood established the Freedom and Justice Party as a political wing to represent the organization in elections and Morsi was its first leader. No legal procedures were taken against the party following the toppling of Morsi just like the National Party after January revolution as it was dissolved and all of its assets were seized by virtue of a court order. The Muslim Brotherhood has also obtained a license to establish a civil society organization called ‘The Muslim Brotherhood Association’ under Morsi. It was dissolved by a court ruling based on the claim of overriding the Egyptian law of associations, as mentioned in the sentence.
Several members of the party and the Muslim Brotherhood organization faced criminal charges including the former president who is accused of incitement to murder and torture of opposing demonstrators at protests that surrounded the presidential palace in early December 2012 rejecting the constitutional declaration by which Morsi immunized his decision from appeal. This decision led to the formation of the Salvation Front to unite the different factions of the opposition.
The Muslim Brotherhood alliances: National Alliance for Legitimacy Support (NALS)
The Muslim Brotherhood heads NALS, which was established a few days before the removal of Morsi. It includes, in addition to the Muslim Brotherhood and its party, several small Islamic parties that represent the political wings of a number of Islamic groups that had been in an armed conflict against the Mubarak regime since the assassination of former president Muhammad Anwar Sadat in 1981 until the last third of the 1990s, in addition to the Islamic Wasat party which was established by a number of former members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Salvation Front
It was established on November 22, 2012 in response to the former president’s immunization of his decisions and the dismissal of the Attorney General. It includes 25 parties and political movements in addition to several public figures. The Front’s members come from a wide range of the Egyptian political spectrum, from the far left to the far right, and different political rivals, some of whom were considered part of the Mubarak regime, and others who were among his most prominent opponents. It led to mass demonstrations against Morsi in November and December and incited the largest portion of opposition during the last eight months of Morsi’s rule. The Front adopted the call for early presidential elections that was launched by Tamarod Movement two weeks later and opened the offices of the affiliated parties as centers to collect signatures demanding the early elections.
A number of the Front’s members acquired ministerial portfolios in the interim government, led by economist Hazem Beblawi, which retained several ministers of Hesham Qandil’s cabinet, the most prominent of whom is the Minister of Interior who is accused by some political activists with excessive use of violence and murder against Morsi’s opponents during the second anniversary of the January 25 revolution. The Front’s parties have not yet decided to take part in the elections stipulated in the road map with a unity list especially since different political views among its members might be an obstacle for such an alliance.
Tamarod movement
An initiative launched by the youth of Kefaya Movement, the most of whom have a Nasserist background. Within days, it turned into an independent initiative including an unidentified number of volunteering members. Social movements and political parties helped in collecting signatures called for by the movement. The movement does not have a definite entity apart from the procedural structure that was the framework for signature collection. After June 30, several groups used the name of the movement that does not yet have an organizational structure. Speakers on behalf of the movement announced that it will join the parliamentary elections, but so far, there are no prominent figures apart from its media spokespersons.
