Morsi takes reins in Egypt

June 26, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Los Angeles Times

CAIRO

Egyptian President-elect Mohammed Morsi on Monday moved into the palace of the man who once jailed him.

His swift settling-in to deposed leader Hosni Mubarak’s office was a potent symbol as Morsi begins forming a Cabinet and works to calm a politically divided and economically frayed nation. Declared the country’s first freely elected president Sunday, Morsi also met with advisers to discuss strategies for strengthening his hand against Egypt’s military leaders, who remain suspicious of his Islamist leanings.

Once a political prisoner, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate now leads the Arab world’s most-populous nation. His election victory and subsequent police escort to the Orouba palace in the capital’s Heliopolis neighborhood were stunning moments in an Egypt where the once inconceivable has turned real in unpredictable and potentially dangerous ways.

The president-elect faces pivotal tests in the days ahead. To unite the country, he must choose a Cabinet that mirrors Egypt’s political diversity; move swiftly on an economic plan to overcome years of poverty and corruption; and, through negotiation and pressure, nudge the army to restore presidential powers it curtailed this month.

A key aim — one that will define presidential authority for years to come — is to influence the drafting of a new constitution.

The secular military — seeking to preserve its authority — is overseeing work on the document. Morsi says he wants a constitution that respects civil rights yet is enshrined in Shariah law, a prospect the generals regard as a threat to their power and a device for upending domestic and international policies that have governed Egypt since the 1970s.

To succeed, Morsi must convince his countrymen that the autocratic government of Mubarak is not simply being replaced with an institution — the Brotherhood — that will base its policies on narrow religious interests. In his victory speech Sunday night, he stressed pluralism but his sharper challenge is to balance the voices of moderate and ultraconservative Islamists against those of leftists, nationalists, women, Christians and other non-Muslims.