Egypt’s President Defies Junta, Orders Parliament Recalled

Liberals Blast Move as Fueling 'Constitutional Crisis'

Egypt’s political landscape is becoming all the more volatile today, as President Mohamed Mursi has ordered the parliament, which the military junta had disbanded weeks ago, recalled.

The junta had disbanded parliament last month and then issued a secondary edict declaring themselves the sole legislative power in Egypt. A large plurality of the parliament was from the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), which is also Mursi’s party.

Mursi’s willingness to reestablish an elected parliament in defiance of the junta was met with praise from political allies, but liberal blocs blasted the move, saying that it added fuel to the constitutional crisis and that allowing the FJP dominated parliament to remain with an FJP president would turn the nation into “an authoritarian state.”

Some analysts downplayed the significance of the move, saying that the parliament was only reinstated until a new constitution was ratified. This was likely the case at any rate, since the parliament was only supposed to be elected for the purpose of drafting the constitution in the first place, before the junta insisted they wouldn’t be allowed to do so.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.