"EGYPT" ISSUES - New Political Showdown in Egypt as Court Invalidates Parliament

Protesters at the Supreme Constitutional
Court in Cairo on Thursday. More Photos 
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New Political Showdown in Egypt as Court Invalidates Parliament 

General Information on Egypt

Official Name: Arab Republic of Egypt
Capital: Cairo (Current local time)
Government Type: Republic
Population: 80.3 million
Area: 386,000 square miles; approximately equal to Texas and New Mexico combined 
Languages: Arabic (official), English and French widely understood by educated classes
Literacy: Total Population: [71%] Male: [83%]; Female: [59%]
Year of Independence: 1922
Web site: Egypt.gov.eg (in Arabic and English)

CAIRO — Egypt’s 

Supreme Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled that the Islamist-led Parliament must be immediately dissolved, while also blessing the right of Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister to run for president, escalating a battle for power between the remnants of the toppled order and rising Islamists. 

Protests as Egypt’s High Court
Invalidates Parliament

The high court, packed with sympathizers of the ousted president, appeared to be engaged in a frontal legal assault on the Muslim Brotherhood, the once-outlawed organization whose members swept to power in Parliament this spring and whose candidate was the front-runner for the presidency as well.

“Egypt just witnessed the smoothest military coup,” Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, wrote in a Twitter post. “We’d be outraged if we weren’t so exhausted.”

 The ruling threw into doubt the status of the presidential election runoff, originally set for Saturday and Sunday, and means that whoever is eventually elected will take power without the check of a sitting Parliament and could even exercise some influence over the election of a future Parliament. It also raises questions about the governing military council’s commitment to democracy, and makes uncertain the future of a constitutional assembly recently formed by Parliament as well. 

The decision, which dissolves the first freely elected Parliament in Egypt in decades, supercharges a building conflict between the court, which is increasingly presenting itself as a check on Islamists’ power, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The ruling, by the highest judicial authority in Egypt, cannot be appealed and it was not clear how the military council, which has been governing Egypt since Mr. Mubarak’s downfall in February 2011, would respond. But in anticipation that the court’s ruling could anger citizens, the military authorities reimposed martial law on Wednesday.

In the weeks before the first round of presidential voting, Parliament had passed a law banning Ahmed Shafik, who was Mr. Mubarak’s last prime minister, and other top officials of the Mubarak government from seeking the presidency. The law was previously set aside by a panel of Mubarak-appointed judges and on Thursday was ruled unconstitutional by the high court.

 At the same time, however, the ruling raised new questions about the presidential runoff itself. Although the court did not invalidate Mr. Shafik’s candidacy, some argued Thursday that it may have raised new questions about the candidacy of his opponent, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The ruling may have had the effect of invalidating Mr. Morsi’s nomination, which relied on his party’s presence in Parliament. 

A defaced photo of the presidential
candidate Ahmed Shafik.

The Egyptian state media reported that a senior member of the court, Judge Maher Sami, said the ruling would require the immediate breakup and re-election of the Brotherhood-led Parliament, and that the application of the decision could also make it harder for the Brotherhood to re-establish its current sizable plurality. 

The ruling was immediately criticized by advocates for a transition to democracy and civilian rule.

 “From a democratic perspective, it is the worst possible outcome imaginable,” said Shadi Hamid, research director of the Brookings Doha Center. “The democratically elected Parliament was the biggest step in Egypt’s transition, and

this casts the entire transition into doubt. It is an anti-democratic decision.” 
“This is an all-out power grab by the military,” he added. “Egypt witnessed a coup today, I think it is fair to say.”

The question at issue in the high court’s decision was the application of a rule setting aside two-thirds of the seats in Parliament for selection by a system of party lists, also known as proportional representation. The other third was reserved for individual candidates competing in winner-take-all races.

Other authorities had decided before the parliamentary election that parties could run their members under their banners as candidates for the individual seats as well as the party list seats, but the court ruled Thursday that the parties should not have been allowed to compete for those seats, and so the results were invalid.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting. 
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: June 14, 2012
A previous version of this article misstated the court’s decision regarding a law passed by Parliament banning Ahmed Shafik from running for president. It was ruled unconstitutional, not constitutional.