Army keeps key powers in Egypt’s new constitution

Cairo: Egypt’s military is to retain key political and judicial powers in the country’s new constitution, state media has confirmed, dashing hopes that this summer’s army takeover was a prelude to a return to full civilian rule.

A key privilege deriving from Egypt’s long period of military dictatorship, the right to try civilians in military courts, has been kept in the new constitution after a long battle within the formulating committee.

The decision, agreed by 30 votes to seven with 13 members of the committee absent or abstaining, led to a walk-out by at least one member.

In a second key move, the committee agreed that for the next eight years the defence minister would be a member of the military and that the military council would have a veto over his appointment.

The decisions were announced at the same time that John Kerry, the US secretary of state, gave the firmest American backing yet for Egypt’s military-backed interim government.

In what some Washington analysts see as a sign of a rift with the White House, he launched into a bitter attack on the Muslim Brotherhood, which the military overthrew in July in what most outside Egypt and the American and British governments regard as a coup.

He said the Islamist group, which won elections in 2012, stole the 2011 revolution against president Hosni Mubarak from the young, predominantly secular activists who led it.

“Those kids in Tahrir Square, they were not motivated by any religion or ideology,” he said. “They were motivated by what they saw through this interconnected world, and they wanted a piece of the opportunity and a chance to get an education and have a job and have a future, and not have a corrupt government that deprived them of all of that.

“And they tweeted their ways and FaceTimed their ways and talked to each other, and that’s what drove that revolution. And then it got stolen by the one single-most organised entity in the state, which was the Brotherhood.”

The Obama administration has previously shown its displeasure at the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood administration led by president Mohammad Mursi by reducing US military aid, long a mainstay of the army. This has led to an outpouring of anti-American propaganda in the state-run media, with Obama accused of being a Brotherhood stooge intent on dividing and weakening Egypt.

The interim government has turned to Russia in search of a new arms deal, and Kerry’s balancing criticism of the Brotherhood, which mirrors the official Egyptian view of events in 2011 and 2012, is being widely interpreted as an attempt to show that the old alliance is still strong, despite America’s critical words.

The constitution is due to be completed next month and put to a referendum. New elections for parliament and president should follow.

— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2013