Egyptian President Mohammad Mursi dramatically challenged the authority of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) when he reinstated the parliament which had been dismissed by Egypt’s highest court.

Mursi is using his new democratic mandate to make the point to the armed forces that he has the genuine authority of the people’s will and the military only have the legacy authority of an interim government.

The reaction of the military could be very dangerous. They are not used to facing such a direct challenge to their authority and they might well over-react. The armed forces know that they are fighting for the privileged existence they have enjoyed ever since the Free Officers led the revolution against the king in 1952.

It is unlikely that they will simply accept the president’s authority to overturn their own rulings, which will endanger their own political survival. It is more likely that they will insist on the right of the constitutional court to make its own judgements, but this will put them on a collision course with the president.

If this happens, then Mursi will be in a strong position, since the Scaf showed its political naivety when it over-reached its authority in June by issuing some bizarrely self-serving directives.

The Scaf gave itself the right to issue legislation — which positioned it directly against the in-coming president — and it encouraged the Constitutional Court to dismiss the entire parliament, when only a third of the seats were in question over a technicality issue. This could have easily been resolved by a series of by-elections.

Given the Scaf’s political stupidity, Mursi should be able to muster massive popular support against the military and greatly reinforce his own position in the inevitable struggle between the presidency and Scaf.

Challenging the generals is good political device to build wide popular support for his presidency and ensure that the mass of Egypt’s population can see him as a wider leader than what his Muslim Brotherhood background might have allowed him to appear.