Egypt’s new parliament could enjoy a popular mandate not seen for decades, bringing a new force to bear on the ruling military council and shaking up the balance of power in a country long ruled by autocrats.
With voters queuing to cast their ballots, the strong turnout in parliamentary elections that began on Monday underlined the political revival that has swept Egypt since former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February.
The election promises to resuscitate a legislature that had acted as no more than a rubber stamp for Mubarak. Like his predecessors, the president who ruled for 30 years throttled political life and entrenched a system of one-man rule.
Photo: AFP
“Today, the ball goes back into the court of the political forces. Today, we are really starting our new regime,” Diaa Rashwan, an Egyptian political analyst said, reflecting on turnout that exceeded the expectations of election officials.
“Power will be in the hands of the political forces. Real politics will be in the hands of the parliament,” he said.
The new parliament could add pressure on the ruling generals, who are already facing street protests by revolutionaries and a broader section of the public angry at their management of the post-Mubarak era.
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Having assumed Mubarak’s sweeping powers, the generals have faced ever tougher public criticism for seeking to preserve military influence and privilege now that he has gone. They say their only concern is to steer Egypt safely toward democracy.
For now, the fact that the first day of voting went off peacefully might deflect some of the criticism. This month was Egypt’s most volatile since Mubarak was ousted: 42 people were killed in violence triggered by protests against the generals.
However, suspicions about their transition plans are likely to persist, despite their denials that they want to keep power.
Come January, when the three-phase election for the lower house of parliament is over, any party or coalition with a substantial share of seats will want a say in government.
The man picked by the generals to head a new interim Cabinet has himself said a new parliament could seek to replace him.
Egyptian Prime Minister-designate Kamal Ganzouri, named by the council on Friday, said his term should last until July 1. By then, the generals say they will have handed power to a president expected to be elected in June.
“But some people say: ‘No, if there are elections it might bring a majority that will form a new government.’ This is all possible,” Ganzouri, a 78-year-old who served as a prime minister under Mubarak, said in an interview on Sunday.
The comments appeared at odds with messages from the army council, one of whose members has said the new parliament would not be able to dismiss the government or pick new ministers.
The new parliament’s main task is to select a 100-member constituent assembly to write a constitution that will then be put to a referendum. Whether that can be done before the planned presidential election in June is hard to say. Nor is it clear if a new president will immediately dissolve parliament.
On paper, the generals will have the final say over all matters of state until the new president is installed.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
Yet they might discover that the popular legitimacy enjoyed by the next assembly proves irresistible. Were they to ignore parliament the way Mubarak did, they might face a new wave of unrest from Egyptians who now know the power of the street.
The balance of power in Egypt will have to be renegotiated once the election is complete, even though some Egyptians believe the rules set for the vote were flawed and a limited timeframe gave an unfair advantage to established groups.
However, if the elections continue to go smoothly, parliament might enjoy more legitimacy and credibility than revolutionaries camped out in Tahrir Square though their protest movement is unlikely to disappear soon.
Nabil Abdel Fattah, a political analyst, said it was doubtful the new parliament would be able to remove the government, though it might have a say over certain ministries.
He foresaw even more complex political tussles, saying: “There is a chance of tension between parliament and Ganzouri and the military council, and between all three of these and the revolutionary factions in the Egyptian squares.”
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the