Egypt Leaders’ Transition Plan Meets With Swift Criticism (NY Times)

[pinto]

Egypt Leaders’ Transition Plan Meets With Swift Criticism

By David D. Kirkpatrick
Published: July 9, 2013

CAIRO — Egypt’s new military-led government enlisted internationally recognized figures to serve as its public face and promised swift elections on Tuesday, but introduced a transitional plan that was widely criticized as muddled, authoritarian and rushed.

The so-called road map, in the form of a “constitutional declaration” by the military-appointed president, elicited immediate opposition from civilian leaders across the political spectrum — including the liberals and activists who sought the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, the faction of ultraconservative Islamists who joined them and the many thousands protesting to demand his reinstatement. The declaration, however, made clear that the government drew its authority only from the military commander who executed the takeover, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi. The interim president, Adli Mansour, a senior judge, cited the general’s brief statement as the basis of his own authority, and in confirmation the general’s words were printed as law in the official Gazette.

“It is now officially a coup,” Nathan Brown, a political scientist specializing in Egyptian law at George Washington University, wrote in assessing the text.

The military-led government widened its crackdown on Mr. Morsi’s Islamist supporters a day after security forces shot hundreds of them and killed more than 50 at a sit-in to demand his reinstatement. Security officials blamed the Islamists for instigating the lopsided clashes, and as part of its investigation of the episode ordered the arrests of 650 leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s mainstream Islamist movement, and of Gamaa Islamiyya, a more conservative and once-violent group.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/world/middleeast/egypt-elections.html?_r=0