Jew World Order

CAIRO — As Egyptians voted in a second day of elections for a successor to Hosni Mubarak, the ruling military issued an interim constitution Sunday defining the new president’s authorities, a move that sharpened the confrontation with the Muslim Brotherhood and showed how the generals will maintain the lion’s share of power no matter who wins.

With parliament dissolved and martial law effectively in force, the generals granted themselves considerable authorities. They will be the de facto lawmakers, control the budget and will control who writes the permanent constitution that will define the country’s future.

A significant question from the Saturday-Sunday runoff will be how their relationship will be with the new president.

Ahmad Shafiq, who was Mubarak’s last prime minister and is a former air force commander, is seen as the generals’ favorite in the contest and would likely work closely with them. So closely that his opponents fear the result will be a continuation of the military-backed, authoritarian police state that Mubarak ran for nearly 29 years.

A victory by his opponent, the conservative Islamist Mohammed Morsi, could translate into a rockier tussle for spheres of power between his Muslim Brotherhood and the military. The Brotherhood has reached accomodations with the generals at times over the past 16 months since Mubarak’s fall, as it reached deals with Mubarak’s regime itself.

But the group took a more defiant tone with the military Sunday in an apparent bid to rally the public to its side in the last hours of voting after two days of seemingly tepid turnout. It warned of protests if Shafiq wins, heightening worries that each side will reject a victory by the other.

It rejected last week’s order by the Supreme Constitutional Court dissolving parliament, where they were the largest party, as a “coup against the entire democratic process.” It also rejected the military’s right to declare an interim constitution and vowed that an assembly created by parliament last week before its dissolution will write the new charter, not one picked by the generals.

“If it happens that they announce he (Shafiq) is the winner, then there is forgery,” said Brotherhood spokesman Murad Mohammed Ali. “We will return to the streets” – though he added, “we don’t believe in violence.”

The race has already been deeply polarizing. Critics of Shafiq, an admirer and longtime friend of Mubarak, critics see him as an extension of the old regime that millions sought to uproot when they staged a stunning uprising that toppled Mubarak 16 months ago.

Morsi’s opponents, in turn, fear that if he wins, the Brotherhood will take over the nation and turn it into an Islamic state, curbing freedoms and consigning minority Christians and women to second-class citizens. Many Egyptians spoke of a potential military backlash against the Brotherhood, citing 1954 when young army officers who seized power two years earlier outlawed the group, jailing its leaders and thousands of its members. The Brotherhood remained outlawed until 2011.

While each has a core of strong supporters – each got about a quarter of the vote in the first round voting among 13 candidates last month – others see the choice as a bitter one. The prospect that the generals will still hold most power even after their nominal handover of authority to civilians by July 1 has deepened the gloom, leaving some feeling the vote was essentially meaningless.

“Things have not changed at all. It is as if the revolution never happened,” Ayat Maher, a 28-year-old mother of three, said as she waited for her husband to vote in Cairo’s central Abdeen district. She said she voted for Morsi, but did not think there was much hope for him. “The same people are running the country. The same oppression and the same sense of enslavement. They still hold the keys to everything.”

The winner will be officially announced Thursday. But the result could be known by as early as Monday morning, based on results from individual counting stations that Egyptian media and each campaign usually compile and make public. Turnout could be a significant indicator. If significantly lower than the 46 percent in last month’s first round of the presidential election, it would be a sign of widespread discontent with the choice and doubts over the vote’s legitimacy. There were no figures yet from the current voting.

The weekend election followed a series of developments last week that turned the transition period overseen by the generals on its head.

First, the military slapped de facto martial law on the country, giving military police and intelligence agents the right to arrest civilians for a host of suspected crimes, some as secondary as obstructing traffic. Later came the court ruling dissolving parliament and allowing Shafiq to stay in the race despite legislation barring Mubarak regime figures from running for office.

State TV said the ruling military council had issued the interim constitution, expected for the past several days. It gave no details, saying those would be revealed by the generals at a press conference Monday. But according to earlier leaks in state newspapers, the generals would be the nation’s de facto legislators and control the budget. They also will name the 100-member panel tasked with drafting a new constitution, thus ensuring the new charter would guarantee them a say in key policies like defense and national security as well as shield their vast economic empire from civilian scrutiny.

The president will be able to appoint a Cabinet and have the powers to approve or reject laws.

The generals, mostly in their 60s and 70s, owe their ranks to the patronage of Mubarak and are led by Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the ousted leader’s defense minister of 20 years. All along, activists from the pro-democracy youth groups that engineered the anti-Mubarak uprising questioned the generals’ will to hand over power, arguing that after 60 years of direct or behind-the-scenes domination, the military was unlikely to voluntarily relinquish its perks.

Earlier Sunday, the Brotherhood’s speaker of parliament Saad el-Katatni met with military council member Gen. Sami Anan and told him the group does not recognize the dissolution of parliament, according to a Brotherhood statement that pointedly referred to el-Katatni by his title.

El-Katatni also insisted the military could not issue an interim constitution and that the constituent assembly formed last week would meet in the “coming hours” to go ahead with its work in writing the permanent charter.

Lawmakers are literally locked out of parliament, which is ringed by soldiers. But the Brotherhood appeared to be angling to present itself as a force to counter the generals, as it tried to get its supporters out at the last minute to the polls before they closed at 10 p.m.

“We got rid of one devil and got 19,” said Mohammed Kanouna, referring to Mubarak and the members of the military council as he voted for Morsi after night fell in Cairo’s Dar el-Salam slum. “We have to let them know there is a will of the people above their will.”

The Brotherhood depicted a Shafiq victory as possible only by fraud. At the Brotherhood’s campaign headquarters in Cairo, spokesman Ali said exit polls carried out by the group showed Morsi had a “significant” lead. He insisted “it is impossible that Shafiq wins.” He did not give specifics on the polls and there was no independent confirmation of their reliability.

Security was tight in Cairo on Sunday, with heavier-than-usual army and police presence and army helicopters flying low over the sprawling city of some 18 million people.

Few voters displayed an air of celebration visible in previous post-Mubarak elections.

“It’s a farce. I crossed out the names of the two candidates on my ballot paper and wrote `the revolution continues’,” said architect Ahmed Saad el-Deen in Cairo’s Sayedah Zeinab district.

“I can’t vote for the one who killed my brother or the second one who danced on his dead body,” he said, alluding to Shafiq’s alleged role in the killing of protesters during last year’s uprising and claims by revolutionaries that Morsi’s Brotherhood rode the uprising to realize its own political goals.

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AP correspondent Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report.

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