Post-revolution polls in Egypt

In North Sinai, a restive area that borders Gaza, the military recently moved to close the smuggling tunnels that burrow under the Gaza-Egypt border.
Good.

On the bright side, in Egypt, the government has not been shooting Sarin gas at its opposition. :p
 
More bad news.

Egypt: '50 dead' in clashes amid rival demonstrations

At least 50 people have been killed and scores hurt in Egypt in clashes between police and supporters of the deposed Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

More than 200 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were arrested in Cairo, where most of the deaths were reported.

Supporters of Mr Morsi marched in several cities, as the military-backed government marked the 40th anniversary of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

Egyptian soldiers killed in Ismailiya and Sinai attacks

* An officer was among at least six soldiers killed in a drive-by shooting by gunmen outside Ismailiya

* Three police officers died and 40 people were injured in the car-bomb attack in al-Tour, southern Sinai, which left a four-storey building used by the security forces significantly damaged

* Assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a state-owned satellite station in the Maadi suburb of Cairo, reportedly causing damage to a satellite dish

Police in Qaliubiya, north of Cairo, arrested 38 members of the Muslim Brotherhood carrying petrol bombs, firecrackers and masks as they stormed a metro station, reported Mena state news agency.

The Brotherhood members "opened fire on police troops and residents and destroyed entrance and exit gates of the station", it said.

Security forces have been the frequent victims of attacks in northern Sinai, where analysts say a fully fledged insurgency is building.

The latter is especially worrisome, since it indicates the Brotherhood are turning to terror tactics.
 
Egypt’s ‘revolution’ is over as people accept imposition of military rule

BY NANCY A. YOUSSEF MCCLATCHY FOREIGN STAFF CAIRO -- Three months after the Egyptian military ousted the country’s first democratically elected president, Egypt now resembles the kind of police state whose oppressive policies gave rise to an iconic Arab Spring.

Nearly three years and many protests, elections and governments later, it seems only the electorate has changed. The public, desperate for stability at any cost, has embraced the iron hand that rules and rejected the revolutionary and Islamist groups who pushed for change.

Even a protest on Friday by supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi underscored the point. The Morsi supporters sought to claim the mantle of defenders of the revolution and provocatively marched toward Tahrir Square, the iconic center of Egypt’s Arab Spring uprising. But the military stopped them, and Cairo residents helped, throwing rocks, bottles and objects at the Morsi demonstrators. Five people were killed nationwide.
 
Which is just what I predicted almost four years ago, back when the protests against Mubarak in Tahrir Square began. :(
 
Report: U.S. to Suspend Aid to Egypt

The U.S. will cut off aid to Egypt following the July coup that ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, CNN reports.

In the wake of the bloody ouster of Morsi and violence in the aftermath of the overthrow, there was much hand wringing in Washington over what exactly to call the change in power because, as the New York Times reported at the time, “under United States law it has no choice but to cut off financial assistance to the country if it determines that he was deposed in a military coup.” The stakes were, and continue to be high both politically and economically. Since 1979, Egypt ranks second, trailing only Israel, in American aid and Obama’s budget for this fiscal year amounted to $1.55 billion for Egypt, with $1.3 billion for the military and $250 million for economic aid, according to the Times.


Expect cries of "Obama is a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood".
 
Details of the draft of Egypt's new constitution (to replace the one the Brotherhood ramrodded through last year) have been revealed:

The final draft, seen by Reuters, does away with the Islamist-inspired additions that featured in the constitution approved by a referendum during Morsy’s year in office.

It empowers the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to approve the choice for a defense minister who would serve for eight years from when the constitution becomes law.

Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted the Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsy, Egypt’s first freely elected leader, on July 3 after mass protests against him. Sisi suspended the constitution and an assembly was named to draft a new one by December 3.

The document it has produced proscribes any political party founded on "a religious basis", reverting to a prohibition that was in force during Mubarak’s 30-year rule.

Even though Islamists dominated five national votes held since Mubarak fell in 2011, the constituent assembly includes only two Islamists - one from the hardline Salafi Nour party and the other a former Brotherhood leader who is now harshly critical of the group he left last year.

The draft constitution also allows civilians to be tried in military courts - another holdover from the Mubarak era and one that will dismay pro-democracy campaigners.

Assuming the draft constitution is approved, next year’s parliamentary election will be run under a different voting system, with two-thirds of the seats allotted to individual candidates and one third to party lists - reversing the proportions in the last polls, which Islamist parties won.

Back to the pre-Arab Spring status quo, it looks like. The only potential difference is that a different president might (might) get into office in each presidential election, rather than being one dictator who keeps getting re-elected.
 
Egypt should just change the constitution to say the strong rule the weak.

That's why the Muslim Brotherhood were booted from power and hunted down. The elected don't rule, the strong rule.
 
The draft constitution mandates massive state spending on welfare, health and education. 10% of GDP. That's either going to send the government (even more) broke or fail to establish the foundation of legal consistency required to attract investment.

What money they do spend will be stolen by the legions of crooks that make up Egypt's vast, bloated civil bureaucracy.
 
The draft constitution mandates massive state spending on welfare, health and education. 10% of GDP. That's either going to send the government (even more) broke or fail to establish the foundation of legal consistency required to attract investment.

What money they do spend will be stolen by the legions of crooks that make up Egypt's vast, bloated civil bureaucracy.

yeah who Needs health, education of social security nets..... :rolleyes:
 

Egypt broadens attack on Muslim Brotherhood

CAIRO — Egyptian authorities said Thursday that they arrested dozens of Muslim Brotherhood members across the country and seized their land, stocks, and vehicles, a muscular response one day after the military-backed government declared the Islamic group a terrorist organization.

Social and charitable groups even loosely associated with the group struggled after their funds were frozen by the state. It was a new level of disruption to a society already riven by violence and suspicion in the months since the military ousted Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president and a Brotherhood leader.

Egypt’s new leaders clearly signaled that they had opened a wide-ranging and possibly protracted war on every facet of the Brotherhood’s activities, with the terrorism designation giving the security forces greater latitude to stamp out a group deeply rooted in Egyptian social and civic life.

Egypt roadside bus bomb wounds five, two other devices defused

CAIRO – Five people were injured – one of them critically – when a roadside bomb hit a bus in Cairo's Nasr City district on Thursday, officials said.

The homemade device had been place near a bus stop and was detonated as passengers were getting off, a security source said.

A second bomb was found nearby and defused by an explosives ordnance team, the sourced added – and a third device was also being dealt with.

All three devices were in an area close to the King Fahd school complex.

Egypt’s military-backed interim government has vowed to fight "black terrorism" after Tuesday's deadly attack on a police compound in the city of Mansoura which killed 16 people and injured about 140.

Apparently a different group claimed responsibility for the attack (see Orphia's link), and the Muslim Brotherhood denounced it, but the government is blaming it on the MB anyway.
 

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