Police fired tear gas into a crowd of stone-throwing protesters on a street near the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. Other demonstrators staged a sit-in at Tahrir Square, the epicenter of protests during last year's ouster of Morsi's predecessor, Hosni Mubarak. The recent, ongoing protests are not just against Morsi, but also against the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization from which he came. Opposition groups are calling for the brotherhood's spiritual leader to get out of the way. It is a stunning reversal for an organization that spent decades building good will among Egyptians, playing the long game of combining charity work and prayer to win hearts and minds. It largely paid off. In June, its presidential candidate, Morsi, proved to many liberal and secular voters the better choice to lead a post-revolution society.
Morsi granted himself new powers in a November 22 decree, though, that bars the judiciary from challenging his decisions. The president says the decrees are designed to protect state institutions. Morsi later promised the Supreme Judicial Council that he will restrict his newly self-granted powers to "sovereign matters." The vaguely worded statement, however, did not define the issues over which he would have absolute power. In a move that could help resolve the political crisis, the assembly drafting a new constitution said it would complete work Wednesday on a final draft later. Three assembly members said a vote on the draft by the assembly was planned for Thursday. A new constitution would override Morsi's current moves. But many liberals and other opponents of Morsi have in recent weeks ended participation in the assembly, which is dominated by Islamists. They say their voices are not being heard.
Dangerous play
Mustafa el-Labbad, director of the Al Sharq Center for Regional and Strategic Studies, said Morsi is in dangerous political waters. "If Mr. Morsi is not smart enough to step back from his declaration I think it would be a challenge not only for his constitutional declaration but for the whole legitimacy of Mr. Morsi and the legitimacy of the brotherhood," he said. "So it is a game with higher stakes now." When elected, Morsi ended his official ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and its political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, promising to be the president of all Egyptians.
American University in Cairo professor Said Sadek said the president's initial steps after taking over from the interim military council showed promise. "Dr. Morsi managed in the first two months to please Egyptians, even the skeptical people who opposed him and people who did not vote to him, by getting rid of the military generals and also taking some symbolic stances just to show that he is independent in his own foreign policy," he said. But the president's pledge to present a diverse executive branch foundered, with key positions on both national and local levels being stacked with members of the Brotherhood.
Judiciary hampered
