How much authority will Egypt’s future parliament have?
An Egyptian soldier stands guard at a polling station in a school during the run-off of the first round of voting at a polling station in Cairo on December 5, 2011. Islamist candidates looked to extend their crushing victory in Egypt’s first parliamentary elections since the overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak.
The NYT writes on the military’s attempt to control the process of writing Egypt’s future constitution – despite the fact that democratic elections for the parliament (which was supposed to control the process of writing Egypt’s future constitution) are still underway.
In an unusual briefing evidently aimed at Washington, Gen. Mukhtar al-Mulla of the ruling council asserted that the initial results of elections for the People’s Assembly do not represent the full Egyptian public, in part because well-organized factions of Islamists were dominating the voting. The comments, to foreign reporters and not the Egyptian public, may have been intended to persuade Washington to back off its call for civilian rule.
“So whatever the majority in the People’s Assembly, they are very welcome, because they won’t have the ability to impose anything that the people don’t want,” General Mulla said, explaining that the makeup of Parliament will not matter because it will not have power over the constitution.
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