Atlantic Council

At twenty-two, Amr El Salanekly has won the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative fellowship, co-founded a social incubator and an educational platform for underprivileged kids, turned down a job with Bangladeshi Nobel Laureate Mohammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank, and raised hundreds of thousands of Egyptian pounds for community projects in Egypt, while completing his bachelor’s degree at the German University in Cairo.

A judicial source at the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) rejected the idea of merging judicial bodies coupled with the abolition of the SCC, asserting that this is not permissible in any way and that each competent body considers the issues that fit its mandate. The source added that the SCC has the duty to interpret laws, regulations, and compliance with constitutional limitations on their provisions.

The first thought that comes to mind when reading Bradley Hope’s Last Days of the Pharaoh is that Hosni Mubarak is a human being. Over the past year and a half, this is a fact that has become all too easy to forget. We see him only as the tyrant, so full of arrogant pride that his name was carefully stitched over and over into thin white lines in the pinstripe suits he wore. In Hope’s account of the last few days of Mubarak’s rule, we are given a glimpse of the 'man' rather than one of the 'president.'

Minister of Justice Ahmed Mekki will transfer authority over the Judicial Inspection Directorate from the Ministry of Justice to the Supreme Council of the Judiciary (SCJ), effectively ending one of the main ways the executive branch controlled the judiciary. 

President Mohamed Morsi delivered a tremendously game-changing blow to the military with the dismissal of defense minister and head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi along with his chief of staff Sami Anan. The broad reshuffle of Egypt’s security personnel and the SCAF set activists, think-tanks, and egyptophiles ablaze with theories and analyses regarding the boldest move to date from a man previously dismissed as a mere puppet to the status quo, the “spare tire.” This story, however, still has a final chapter as yet unwritten, one that remains largely ignored at the moment. Most of these analyses have yet to address the last major player in the chess game: the judiciary.

Most signs pointed towards former Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi and former Chief of Staff Sami Anan quietly accepting their dismissal at the hands of President Mohamed Morsi on Monday. Their acquiescence is now confirmed after appearing at the presidential palace to receive medals of honor, presented to them by Morsi himself.

President Mohamed Morsy has no intentions to reinstate the dissolved Parliament, presidential spokesperson Yasser Ali said Monday. Ali said the parliamentary elections would be held within two months of the completion of the new constitution. 

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces’ (SCAF) official Facebook page featured one new post on Monday: a CV of sorts detailing the 35 year military career of the new SCAF leader and Minister of Defense, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The post signals that President Mohamed Morsi’s  move on August 12, forcing SCAF heavyweights, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi and Chief of Staff Sami Anan into retirement, will not be contested.  A Facebook page allegedly associated with SCAF was more forthright with a post referring to the shuffle as a “natural change”. Reclaiming legislative and presidential power, Egypt’s first civilian president now appears to be more powerful than his predecessors, as Morsi, and the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), continue to inherit Mubarak and SCAF’s autocratic powers, many of which are the underlying cause for repeated protests, and continue to pocket them for themselves. 

Egypt's military has shown no sign of opposing the president's surprise decision to retire the defense minister and chief of staff and seize back the powers the military grabbed from his office. Nearly a full day after the order, no unusual military movements were reported anywhere across the nation. 

With a bold decree canceling the June 17 Supplementary Constitutional Declaration that limited his powers just before his inauguration--as well as a spate of new senior appointments eliminating senior leaders of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and promoting more junior SCAF members--President Mohammed Morsi appears to be using last week's Sinai crisis as an opportunity to implement a broader plan.  What is not yet clear is whether he will succeed to a greater degree than he did with an earlier part of the strategy.

The Constituent Assembly has made quick progress with the writing of the constitution, spurred on by the postponement of a court case calling for its dissolution. It is unclear whether the current Assembly is capable of writing a constitution which truly represents the will of the Egyptian people. A law Morsi ratified in July gives the Constituent Assembly immunity against being disbanded is additional cause for concern.

Six suspects in the Sunday attack in Sinai were arrested following a joint operation between the police and the armed forces in Sheikh Zuwayed, North Sinai, state television reported on Friday. The operation was part of a larger crackdown in the Sinai area after a series of assaults were launched against security checkpoints, beginning with Sunday’s attack on the Egypt-Israel border near Rafah which left 16 soldiers dead.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has responded to the August 5 Sinai raid, in which militants killed sixteen Egyptian border guards, by sacking Director of Intelligence Murad Mouwafi, North Sinai Governor Abdel Wahab Mabrouk (provincial governors are presidential appointees), and replacing several other senior security officials.

On Wednesday, the Upper House of Parliament (Shura Council) named 50 new editors for the country's state-run newspapers, amid a backlash, led primarily by the Journalist's Syndicate.