Officials’ resignations strengthen opposition

Cairo A series of resignations of senior officials in Egypt reflect the lack of clarity of decision-making and strengthen the position of the country’s opposition, analysts said.

The Egyptian president’s team has started with 21 members. 12 advisers have resigned since the beginning of President Mohammad Mursi’s tenure in last June.

Presidential adviser for Legal Affairs Mohammad Fouad Gadallah resigned Tuesday to be the last one, citing an “unclear vision for running the country” and “unjustifiable persistence to keep the current government regardless of its failure.”

Now the team is made up of nine advisers and assistants. Most of them belong to the inner circle of Muslim Brotherhood movement.

Gadallah said in an interview with Al Masry Al Youm published on Tuesday that Mursi consults the Muslim Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau when making some decisions, as he would any other state institution.

He added that the Guidance Bureau nominates figures to assume posts in the government, with the president making the final decision.

Gadallah also rejected protests staged by the Muslim Brotherhood on Friday that demanded the judiciary be purged, and described the demonstrations as tragic.

In a letter of resignation, Gadallah said he was quitting in protest at what he called an attempt to undermine the independence of Egypt’s judiciary.

On Saturday, Ahmad Mekki resigned as justice minister over massive anti-judiciary protests staged by President Mohammad Mursi’s Islamist supporters, who called for a purge of the judiciary.

“Despite the presence of a presidential advisory panel, the advisers were kept in the dark until decisions were made,” Ahmad Mekki said.

“Mekki’s resignation represented a blow to the country’s leadership and reflected differences inside the top ruler,” said the political analyst Ammar Ali Hassan, head of the Middle East Centre for Political Studies, to Gulf News.

He added that the resignations of Mursi’s men strengthened the position of the main opposition bloc, named the National Salvation Front (NSF).

The NSF has been accusing the Islamist-oriented president of consulting his Muslim Brotherhood group rather than the presidential advisers.

“These resignations strengthen the NSF in the eyes of the public opinion and give opposition a chance to exercise more pressure on the presidency,” Hassan said.

Hassan believes that the differences between Mursi and his own advisers reflected “lack of a presidential institution in the scientific sense of the word,” adding that the recent anti-judiciary protests of the president’s supporters were attempts of Islamists to slaughter the judicial authority and ruin its independence.

Hassan also criticized a draft law recently submitted by Islamist parliamentarians demanding retirement of judges at the age of 60 instead of 70.

Observers took it as a bid by Islamists to control the judiciary by replacing over 3,000 judges with Islamist-oriented ones.

Ahmad Sayed Ahmad, a political analyst and an assistant editor-in-chief of state-run Al Ahram newspaper said that resignations of 12 presidential advisers in a short period “weaken the position of the presidency and strengthen that of the opposition”.

He pointed out that all the top officials, who quit their posts, “denounced Mursi’s debatable decisions and denied any prior knowledge of them. Also they resigned in protest against his alleged disregard of them before making major decisions”.

“They wanted to relieve themselves of the pressures of the public opinion and the opposition that accused them of misleading the president,” the political expert said.

In November 2012, Mursi issued a controversial constitutional declaration that gave him unquestionable powers. It divided the people and led to deadly clashes outside the presidential palace.

“These resignations showed a state of dissatisfaction and unclarity inside the country’s decision-making institution, raising doubts about who the president consults before making such decisions,” Ahmad said.

- Ayman Sharaf is a journalist based in Cairo