Thursday, December 6, 2012

Morsi Refuses to Cancel Vote on Constitution


For the past two weeks, Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi has been fighting opposition on a vote for a new charter that would give him extended powers as leader, as Morsi himself stated in a televised speech. Among the protestors are soldiers from the Republican Guard have stayed outside of Morsi’s barbed-wire surrounded palace with tanks. Additionally, several of his government officials have quit.

Morsi claims that the expanded powers are necessary because of pre-Mubarak officials “disrupting the country’s political transition.”

Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group backing Morsi, has called protestors “secularists” and “thugs”, implying that they are not true Muslims. Protestors in Cairo’s Tahrir Square say that they respect the religion but not how it is being forced upon them.

Protestor Mohamed Fawzi said, "We are facing two scenarios: civil war or another military takeover. Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood have given us a worse dictatorship than Mubarak. They have a bad man's dream for the country. The opposition is doing its best, but we don't know what will come. Our opposition leaders are bad, full of self-interest."

Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood seem to have advantage in the vote because the religious group probably has enough members for the referendum to pass, but the protests do not seem to be letting up as the referendum will occur on December 15.

 

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I think the protest is a sign of a healthy democratic state in the future. However, I share the quoted protestor's concern on a military takeover. Apparently,in Egypt military sort of just stands by itself as a separate political entity that the President has little control of. (which is good in this case for Morsi would have the okay to do whatever he wants and rebuilds a police state). But I think in the ideal situation, the military should be under civilian control, loyal to the country instead of a few specific military leaders.

The BBC article I read, on the other hand, quoted a retired Egyptian general saying that the military has no interest in meddling itself with the politics after its uncomfortable experience with it during the aftermath of the fall of the last dictatorship. I do not know if this source was genuine or was trying to polish the image of the Egyptian military, but I think the military should play a lesser role in the big picture, and more communication between the two opposing sides is needed ( in the context that Morsi understands that a dictatorship is not feasible in the future.)

Unknown said...

I think this whole situation in Egypt says something about the nature of rebellions. While they may succeed in overthrowing the current despot, just because the rebels seem like "the good guys" while they fight for freedom doesn't mean that they'll necessarily do any better of a job leading the country.