Egyptian Court dissolves new elected parliament

Ahmed Shafiq portrait by people

 Cairo : Selected by Hosni Mubarak and backed by Military, the Egyptian Court have dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament and ruled his former prime minister eligible for the presidential runoff election this weekend which sets the stage for the military and remnants of the old regime to stay in power.

Highly politically charged rulings dealt a heavy blow to the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, which called the decisions a “full-fledged coup”.

Cairo will now see public rallying  against Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister to serve under Mubarak as vowed by Brotherhood. 

Egypt's New Parliament

The decision by the Supreme Constitutional Court effectively erased the tenuous progress from Egypt’s troubled transition in the past year, leaving the country with no parliament and concentrating power even more firmly in the hands of the generals who took over from Mubarak. 

Hundred of the people gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square after the rulings to denounce the action and rally against Ahmed Shafiq which was seen by critics as a symbol of Mubarak’s autocratic rule. 

Although there was no call by the Brotherhood or other groups for massive demonstrations, the crowd did not grow. Activists who engineered Egypt’s uprising have long suspected that the generals would try to cling to power, explaining that after 60 years as the nation’s single most dominant institution, the military would be reluctant to surrender its authority or leave its economic empire to civilian scrutiny. Shafiq’s rival in the Saturday—Sunday runoff, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, said he was unhappy about the rulings but accepted them.