Egyptians voted to ratify a new constitution last week for the second time since 2011 when a wave of protests that gained military support forced Hosni Mubarak from power.
The new constitution remains similar to its predecessors, a main criticism being that it continues to give a vast amount of power to the military with very little or no supervision. The state media reported that 37 percent of eligible voters took part in the election, almost 90 percent of which voted yes on the referendum.
Among other things, the constitution promises equality between men and women and limits a president to two four- year terms and enables him to be impeached. While the constitution maintains that the state religion will remain Islam, and that Sharia will be a primary source for legislation, it also declares that freedom of belief will be absolute. Similar to past Egyptian constitutions, the document also includes an emergency clause that allows the government to suspend the constitution in times of national emergency.
Since the overthrow of the Mubarak regime, Egypt has been in a state of political upheaval as different political parties vie for power in the country. The groups can be separated into three main strains: the military, the Islamists and the revolutionary front. Initially united in 2011, the leftist revolutionary front, an alliance of leftist organizations, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamists worked together to oust Mubarak who was forced from office after losing the support of the military and so called deep state.
After the ouster, however, the military made a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood that led to the formation of a new constitution and the democratic election of Mohammed Morsi. The Muslim Brotherhood, a hundred-year-old grassroots organization, had support from the masses that they had earned through providing social services such as education and medical care to communities throughout the country. This gave them the legitimacy that the military lacked.
Having won the election, the Brotherhood under the leadership of Morsi used the power of the government to try and reform Egyptian society to be a more conservative Islamic state. In doing so, the Brotherhood lost the support not only of minority populations and secularists but also many mainstream Muslims and perhaps most importantly, the military.
“Part of the reason there was so much opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood was because they really did overstep their bounds,” Scott Hibbard, an associate professor in DePaul’s political science department, said. “They could have ruled if they would of just taken into account the military’s interest, but they overplayed their hand.”
The fallout was the overthrow of Morsi by what many would call a military coup, while others believe it to be a continuation or revival of the 2011 revolution.
“The current dynamic is that the Muslim Brotherhood abandoned the secular left and joined forces with the military. Now that the Muslim Brotherhood has fractured with the military you have elements of the secular left joining with the military,” Hibbard said. “It’s amazing, it’s really shocking.”
While the results of the vote on the referendum seem to be overwhelmingly in favor of the new constitution, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic groups have boycotted the vote altogether. Since taking power and throwing out Morsi, sources report that 1,000 people have been killed and 26,000 have been detained by the government in their crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood and supporters of Morsi.
The next step in the political arena for the ruling military back government will be to hold presidential elections. The expected front-runner for the elections is General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the current leader of the military.