Muslim Brotherhood's unlikely new ally? Egypt's military
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood have made their peace with a military elite that hounded them for decades.
Egyptian boys sit in front of graffiti and Arabic, bottom. that reads, 'regime your afraid of a paint brush and a pen,' in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Monday, Dec. 10. The Egyptian military on Monday assumed joint responsibility with the police for security and protecting state institutions until the results of a Dec. 15 constitutional referendum are announced.
Hassan Ammar/AP
Yesterday, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi raised taxes on a host of goods and services, among them alcohol, tobacco, advertising, and construction rebar. Then at around 2 a.m. today, he suspended the tax increases with a short update to his public Facebook account.
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Staff writer
Dan Murphy is a staff writer for the Monitor's international desk, focused on the Middle East. Murphy, who has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, and more than a dozen other countries, writes and edits Backchannels. The focus? War and international relations, leaning toward things Middle East.
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Muslim Brotherhood's unlikely new ally? Egypt's military
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The image of President Morsi in his pajamas padding to his computer to change legislation with a few keystrokes is, in essence, what's filling Egyptian human rights activists and secular politicians with so much dread. Morsi can legislate at whim. And he's demonstrated an appetite for doing so.
Now, he and the Muslim Brotherhood that propelled him to power appear to be accommodating themselves to the authoritarian institutions that worked so well during the country's nearly 60 years of military-backed dictatorship. Concessions have been made to protect the military's autonomy and business interests, and in return Morsi appears to have secured the cooperation of the military.
One law he passed yesterday and did not rescind in a late-night bout of leader's remorse will put that cooperation to the test. The law empowers the Egyptian military to arrest civilians as deemed necessary to maintain "public order" until a referendum on a new Egyptian constitution, scheduled for Dec. 15, is finished. "Public order" offenses were a favorite method of Mubarak's police state for controlling and punishing political dissent.
A spokesman for Morsi claimed today that the powers given to the military to arrest civilians were granted upon the request of the Supreme Electoral Commission. That is unlikely to be accepted at face value by Morsi's opponents, who have been pointing out that the president and the Brothers seem quite happy to use the military to silence opposition in much the same way Mubarak used the military to silence the Brothers for decades.
Morsi's camp insists the order is temporary. And that may be so. Using the military to keep protesters away from the presidential palace or polling places will probably prove effective. And the decree won't be needed after the constitution is passed. It's a form of bridge-financing, with muscle made available in lieu of cash since the draft contains language that also allows for military trials of civilians.
That's much how Morsi's last controversial decree played out. In November, he awarded himself extraordinary powers to prevent Egypt's judiciary from dissolving the constitutional drafting committee. In the absence of judicial oversight, the draft was duly completed, in a rushed and fairly slipshod manner. The draft was handed in to Morsi, who referred it to a referendum. According to current rules in Egypt, once the draft was rubber-stamped by Morsi, the judiciary had no power to step in any more.
So when Morsi revoked that decree two days ago, in what was widely reported to be a "concession" to protesters angry over the contents of the constitution and the manner in which it was being rushed to a vote, he was simply putting down a tool that had served its purpose.
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