Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court has ruled in two unprecedented same-day decisions that the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated parliament must be dissolved and that former officials in the previous Hosni Mubarak government be allowed to hold political office.
Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court has ruled in two unprecedented same-day decisions that the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated parliament must be dissolved and that former officials in the previous Hosni Mubarak government be allowed to hold political office.The rulings, announced on Thursday, were a harsh blow to the Brotherhood and effectively approved the candidacy of presidential hopeful and former prime minister Ahmed Shafik. The verdicts were quickly followed by an announcement that Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) would now oversee the writing of a new constitution. Mohammed el-Beltagy, the vice-president of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), called the sequence of events a "fully fledged coup” in a post on his Facebook page. But Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential candidate, said in an interview with Egyptian channel Dream 2 that the constitutional court’s decision to dismiss the entire parliament did not amount to a military coup."I love the military forces,” he said, adding that the court rulings indicated "there [are] some who seek, strive for, and plan ill against the people”.