Transition to an elected government

Beginning in November 2011, Egypt held its first elections of the post-Mubarak era, with three rounds of voting for the members of the People’s Assembly. When voting was concluded in January, it was clear that the elections had been dominated by Egypt’s Islamist groups: the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party won about 47 percent of the seats in the assembly, and the hard-line Nūr Party won about 25 percent.

The presidential race began in February with the announcement that elections would be held in May 2012, with a runoff in June 2012 if necessary. The first in a series of surprise legal and procedural reversals came in April, when the election commission disqualified nearly a dozen candidates, including two of the most prominent: Omar Suleiman, Mubarak’s former intelligence chief, and Khairat al-Shater, a Muslim Brotherhood leader. When the first round of voting was held in May, Ahmed Shafiq, a former minister in the Mubarak administration, and Mohamed Morsi, the head of the Freedom and Justice Party, received the highest totals and advanced to the runoff.

Egyptian politics were shaken up again in June by a series of developments denounced by Islamists and political liberals as a “soft coup” carried out by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to retain power and prevent Islamists from gaining control of the legislative and executive branches of government. Just days before the presidential runoff on June 16 and 17, the Supreme Constitutional Court unexpectedly invalidated the results of the legislative elections held in 2011 and 2012, forcing dissolution of the Islamist-dominated People’s Assembly. The action was followed on June 17 by a surprise constitutional declaration by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces expanding its authority and placing new restrictions on the powers of the incoming president.

On June 24 Mohamed Morsi was declared the winner of the presidential election, and he took office at the end of the month. Although Morsi began his presidency in a state of apparent subordination to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, he moved to take the upper hand in mid-August, announcing the retirement of several senior members of the council and revoking the constitutional declaration of June 17.

The process of writing a new constitution became the focus of bitter contention between the Islamists and a loose opposition comprising liberal, secular, and Christian factions. The Islamists’ strong performance in parliamentary elections had allowed them to gain a dominant position in the first Constituent Assembly, a 100-member body tasked with drafting the constitution. Opposition members of the assembly, fearing that the Islamists’ dominance in that body would result in a constitution that ignored non-Islamists’ concerns, staged walkouts and filed lawsuits challenging the legality of the assembly. In April an Egyptian court had dissolved the assembly on procedural grounds, but a new Constituent Assembly formed in June met with the same complaints from the opposition, and boycotts continued.

On November 22, 2012, Morsi moved to address his contentious relations with Egypt’s judiciary and to sidestep legal challenges to the legitimacy of the Constituent Assembly by issuing an edict exempting himself from judicial oversight and removing the courts’ power to dissolve the Constituent Assembly. Although Morsi defended the edict as a necessary measure to protect Egypt’s transition to democracy, mass demonstrations were held against what many saw as a seizure of dictatorial powers.

On November 30 the Constituent Assembly approved a draft constitution without the input of the boycotting Christian and secularist members. Morsi called for a referendum on the draft to be held on December 15. Both opponents and supporters of Morsi staged rallies around the country, resulting in some of the largest demonstrations since 2011. Crowds demanding Morsi’s ouster gathered at the presidential palace and ransacked several Muslim Brotherhood offices. As protests continued in early December, Morsi bowed to public anger and rescinded parts of his constitutional decree but retained the article preventing the courts from dissolving the Constituent Assembly. He declared martial law on December 9, authorizing the military to make arrests and keep order until the constitutional referendum could be held. The draft constitution was approved by voters and took effect in late December. Sporadic violent protests against Morsi’s rule continued into early 2013.