Morsi Staggers Referendum on Constitution
Amid the continuing unrest in Egypt, President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood has now decided to bifurcate the referendum on the proposed sharia constitution. The voting will go forward as scheduled this Saturday, but only in ten governorates. The rest of the country will then vote the following Saturday, December 22.
The whole point of Morsi’s presidency, the point of everything he’s done for the last five months, is the implementation of a sharia constitution. As I explain in Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy (soon to be published in paperback), that is what Morsi and the Brotherhood promised to do during the campaign leading to his election as president. Sharia implementation is the goal behind his seizures of dictatorial powers: In August, Morsi awarded himself legislative authority in the wake of the then-ruling junta’s dissolution of the elected, Islamist-dominated parliament in order to ensure that the Islamist agenda proceeded. In late November, he declared his “sovereign” acts immune from judicial review specifically to protect the Islamist-dominated “constituent assembly” that was writing the sharia constitution from being invalidated by the courts.
The ongoing, occasionally lethal controversy over the constitution brings into sharp relief the fraud that is the “Arab Spring” narrative. Morsi, an authoritarian, anti-democratic, sharia hardliner, is lauded as Egypt’s “democratic” ruler because he won a popular election. He is desperate to put his illiberal, liberty-strangling, anti-democratic sharia constitution to a popular vote because he believes that he will win. And with good reason: before Mubarak fell, polling showed that upwards of two-thirds of Egyptians wanted to live under sharia rule; and since Mubarak fell, Islamic supremacists have won popular elections by comfortable margins.
By contrast, Morsi’s opposition — a mixed bag of secularists, leftists, libertarians, authentically moderate Muslims, and religious minorities — condemns the draft constitution as a betrayal of their “democratic” revolution … but the last thing they want is for that proposition to be tested at the ballot box. They rail against Morsi’s power grabs, against the lack of “societal consensus” in the sharia constitution, and against the purportedly invalid constitution-writing “process” because they are desperate to prevent a referendum they are almost certain to lose. Despite the Western media’s mirage of a “democratic” upheaval led by youthful, secular Facebook revolutionaries and such darlings of the Left as Mohammed ElBaradei, the non-Islamists know they are the minority. They also know the West’s democracy fetish is such that a constitution that wins a popular election will be hailed as a triumph of democracy, no matter how much it undermines human rights.
Morsi is bifurcating the referendum because it will help the sharia constitution win. Under Egyptian law, the judiciary is supposed to monitor elections. Because the judiciary is one of the remaining institutions in which the secularists and the old regime enjoy at least a toe-hold, many judges have threatened to boycott the referendum. By staggering the election, fewer judges will be needed for monitoring on each day of voting. In addition, in a bifurcated election, the strong Brotherhood network — unmatched by anything the opposition can muster — will concentrate its full get-out-the-vote effort in smaller areas on each election day. When the parliamentary elections were similarly staggered, the Islamists won by an overwhelming 4-to-1 margin.
Also read: Egyptian President Summons 3,000 Foreign Jihadis to Terrorize Opposition?
Ein Ummah, ein Sharia, ein Führer! (Any questions?)
Barackito Obamalini has none.
Maybe its just the lighting, or the camera angles, or the make up artist, but almost every photo I see of Obama reminds me of Il Duce.
And if the posters have any specific questions, re the real motivations of the Muslim Brotherhood Mafia, here are some lesson plans – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/07/25/the-muslim-mafia-aka-the-brotherhood-their-overarching-plan-what-it-means-for-americas-future-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
And their bullet point plan for the west, all in order to implant Shariah Law, is of piece with the same plan they are installing in the Mid East & beyond. They are Allah-bent on reviving their Caliphate and no one is going to stop them from swathing forward, whatever tiny adjustments have to be made along their path.
And the fact that the leader of the heretofore free world is assisting their efforts, well, what else else needs to be said. Exactly.
There must be somewhere a mathematical theorem which states that the amount of wishful thinking always remains proportional to the depth of the tragedy it is trying to pretend does not exist. Hence the other principle that reminds us that evil happens because men of good will allow it, by ignoring it!
Bogus elections are the vogue in the new Millennium – Iran – the U.S. – and now Egypt. What else is new?
Syria Propaganda Looking a Lot Like Iraq Propaganda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlkLVejR2Vw&feature=player_embedded#!
An odd irony: Morsi’s power lies in the vote across the nation as a whole. The opposition’s power lies in the tens of thousands it can bring to the street and has at the Presidential Palace for the last week.
Should be the other way around.
I think there is little doubt Morsi wouldn’t win a Presidential election today, but he did.
In the end this will be decided by the street, and resolve will carry the day just as in the case of Mubarak. They’re talking about three quarters of a million people at the palace and men from Al Ahzar University have joined in against Morsi.
Egypt is a deeply conservative, not necessarily religious, country. Not everyone is on board with the doctrines of Sayd Qutb. Much of what is happening has sad echoes in America where the formally disenfranchised are now institutionalized and want payback. No one knows how this will play out but Morsi is not having his own way in this as people think. He was forced to rescind his power grab and people still didn’t go away.
Frankly, I don’t know how much longer Morsi can stay in his position. The MB is moving too far, too fast and have lost credibility with the middle.
Did he learn that maneuver from the European Union?
We have o sending F16s to Morsi’s muslim brotherhood government.
Unbelievable!At what point will those jets be used against Israel &/or the US?
At the very instant it can be “justified,” to stop the “aggressors,” in Israel, would be my guess.
THE UNITED STATES IS ARMING THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD GOVERNMENT IN EGYPT WITH U.S. TAXPAYER DOLLARS. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi recently attempted to seize absolute power and impose Sharia Law on the Egyptian people. As a result, massive protests and violence have erupted all across Egypt. And how did the Obama Administration respond? By … READ MORE: http://bwcentral.org/2012/12/the-united-states-is-arming-the-muslim-brotherhood-government-in-egypt-with-u-s-taxpayer-dollars/
I bet Obama is jealous of Morsi.