The announcement, read on state television by Morsi’s spokesman and broadcast repeatedly with accompanying nationalistic songs, shocked many in this struggling country, and street protests quickly erupted.
Morsi’s broad assertion of control came less than 24 hours after a diplomatic triumph in arranging the cease-fire in Gaza had given new credence to Morsi’s international bona fides. And it raised questions about whether Egypt might be headed to a return of its Mubarak-era arrangement on the world stage: a country praised for bringing stability to a volatile region and tolerated for abusing rights at home.
Muslim Brotherhood officials, with whom Morsi is allied, said the measures were necessary to ensure the country’s full and healthy return to democracy.
“This level of immunity for presidential decrees is indeed unprecedented, but it is necessary, and it is controlled by a time frame” that ends with the election of a new parliament, said Gehad el-Haddad, a senior Muslim Brotherhood adviser. “This constitutional declaration cements the way forward in terms of time frame and powers.”
But the decision raised immediate concerns among many liberal activists who had already been worried that Morsi had taken a distinctly authoritarian air in the three months since he swept out the top ranks of the military and sidelined what had long been a powerful independent institution in Egypt. Egypt’s short-lived parliament was dismissed by the country’s high court shortly before Morsi took power, so legislative powers also are concentrated under the president. Taking the courts out of the equation means there will be no judicial review of Morsi’s decisions.
Morsi was elected in June, narrowly triumphing over a Mubarak-era cabinet minister, Ahmed Shafiq, with 52 percent of the vote.
“The President may take the necessary actions and measures to protect the country and the goals of the revolution,” the decree read in part.
“Morsi today usurped all state powers & appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh,” wrote former liberal presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei on Twitter. “A major blow to the revolution that cld have dire consequences.”
The implications on the international stage seemed less clear, and any American response was muted because of the Thanksgiving holiday. Just hours before the announcement, Morsi had been winning plaudits from Israel, Hamas and the United States for having brokered a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot that rules the Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip. Over Tuesday and Wednesday, Morsi and President Obama spoke by telephone three times, White House officials said.
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