Atlantic Council

A long-brewing battle within Egypt’s ministry of interior has culminated into a potentially indefinite countrywide strike by police officers. The build up to this massive breakdown in the command and control structure inside the government’s primary security apparatus began as a few scattered protests across the different governorates of Egypt.

Reactions to the National Salvation Front’s decision last week to boycott the upcoming parliamentary elections - which have since been delayed due to legal wrangling - generally followed well-established rhetorical lines. Supporters of the boycott lamented President Morsi’s mismanagement, the ‘brotherhoodization’ of the country and saw a boycott as a way to deny the current government political legitimacy. In contrast, those opposed saw plans to boycott as ineffective political posturing that would do nothing constructive to further Egypt’s political life. Here are a few highlights:

Policemen across Egypt staged a strike on Thursday to demand the resignation of the interior minister, saying they no longer wanted to be used as a political tool, security officials said. 

“They are killing Egypt slowly. Strangling it. She is suffocating day by day. Until one day there will be nothing left.” A taxi driver said to me. “Who?”, I asked. “Everyone. The Opposition. The Muslim Brotherhood. Everyone. Morsi is no good. I don’t even think he is calling the shots. But dealing with such a situation should not be like this (referring to the opposition’s strategy, I assume). Tourism is dead. Fuel is scarce. Prices are soaring. And ordinary people, like myself and my family, are suffering.”

The president's office released a statement Wednesday evening saying it would not appeal an earlier court ruling that could delay upcoming parliamentary elections

Today, Egypt's Administrative court referred the electoral law to the Supreme Constitutional Court and suspended parliamentary elections slated for April 22. Below are immediate reactions to the ruling:

Egypt’s Administrative Court upended the timetable for parliamentary elections slated to begin on April 22 by canceling President Mohamed Morsi’s presidential decree calling for a vote and ordering that the recently drafted electoral law – marred by claims of gerrymandering and procedural flaws – be resubmitted to the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) for further review. The decision was predicted by a chorus of opposition parties and legal experts, who in recent weeks warned that Egypt’s half-baked Parliament – which has been functioning with only one of its two chambers (the Shura Council) after the lower house (People’s Assembly) was dissolved by court order last June – failed to adequately revise the draft electoral law in compliance with the SCC’s recommended changes to ten articles deemed constitutionally suspect. Even the spokesman of the SCC itself ominously warned last week, “The failure to submit the law once again to the SCC is a major mistake.” After recklessly ignoring these warnings, the Shura Council is now being forced to do what it should have done weeks ago: Send the electoral law back to the SCC for guidance on correcting its many remaining flaws.

House of Representatives elections have been delayed after the Supreme Administrative Court referred the election law recently passed by the Shura Council to the Supreme Constitutional Court, questioning the constitutionality of Article 2.  

The past two years of street art in Cairo have been a fascinating narrative of the political and social turmoil of Egypt since January 25. Graffiti artists have documented the uprisings and downfalls beset upon our society, depicting the struggles of those without a voice. One interesting thread to follow is the narrative of Egyptian women since the revolution: street artists in Cairo, most of whom were men, took on the cause, advocating for women’s rights, shedding light on the injustice and violence suffered by women, and paying tribute to the brave women fighting for equality in post-revolutionary Egypt.

The Strong Egypt Party is to participate in coming elections for the House of Representatives, Egypt's lower house of parliament. Meanwhile, National Salvation Front spokesperson Ahmed al-Borai said Monday the NSF planning to challenge the electoral law at the Supreme Constitutional Court and the State Council in the coming few days

This is our situation in Egypt: a society divided between participators and boycotters, a public that asks what good is participation under unjust rules and the effectiveness of boycotting; citizens whose preferences change by the minute and hour rather than by the day and the week; and a state of constant flux accompanied by fear for the fate of the country and its citizens.

President Mohamed Morsi met with US Secretary of State John Kerry at Ettehadiya Palace in Cairo Sunday. The American official said the US would give Egypt US$190 million to support the government's budget, according to Reuters. 

Egypt’s parliamentary elections in 2012- the first in the wake of Egypt’s democratic uprising- were understandably messy. They were held on a condensed timeline, under intense political pressure and using an untested electoral system.  Members of the High Elections Commission (HEC) were clearly improvising the electoral timeline as the process was unfolding.  The allocation of electoral symbols was stretched so thin that some individual candidates had to formally object to being assigned an onion, crane, teapot, or vacuum cleaner.  The size of the ballot was such that in some districts that it unfolded like a map. 

Catch up on the latest out of Egypt every week, with analysis, news updates, photos, videos, and more.