New crisis looming in Egypt

Associated Press

CAIRO

A new showdown loomed in Egypt on Monday as the country’s highest court stood by its ruling that dissolved parliament last month, challenging the new Islamist president’s plans to reconvene the lower chamber in defiance of the military.

If he goes ahead, Mohammed Morsi would be taking a dramatic step away from the outreach that characterized his first days in office.

It’s a tough fight, though, and the president could lose it along with more of his already diminished powers.

The military, which handed power to Morsi on June 30 after ruling the country for 16 months, delivered a thinly-veiled warning to the president, saying it would continue to support the country’s “legitimacy, constitution and law” — language that means it will not stand by and watch the rulings of the country’s top court ignored or breached.

At the same time, the Supreme Constitutional Court sent out a clear signal that it will not bow to Morsi’s wish, saying in a statement after an emergency meeting on Monday that its June 14 ruling to invalidate the Islamist-dominated parliament was final and binding.

“Morsi’s move sets the stage for a potentially very serious political and constitutional crisis,” said Michael W. Hanna, an expert on Egypt from the New York-based Century Foundation.

Morsi, through his spokesman Yasser Ali, insisted his decision to reconvene the 508-seat chamber today was an “assertion of the popular will.”

His presidential decree also calls for new parliamentary elections after a new constitution is adopted, something that is not expected before the end of the year — in effect according legitimacy to a legislature the country’s highest court ruled to be invalid.