Politics
Egypt: President Mursi repeals decree that led to unrest
Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi. PHOTO/File
Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi has backed down in a dire political crisis marked by weeks of street protests, after the powerful army gave an ultimatum to him and the opposition to sit down for talks.
The Islamist leader annulled a controversial decree issued last month that put all his decisions beyond judicial review – a decision denounced as a dictatorial “power grab” by the opposition.
“The constitutional decree is annulled from this moment,” Selim al-Awa, an Islamist politician acting as spokesman of a meeting Mursi held earlier with other political leaders, told a Cairo news conference in the presence of Mursi aides.
Awa said that an equally contentious referendum on a new constitution would go ahead as planned on December 15 because of the legal impossibility for the president to postpone it.
But he added that, if the draft constitution were rejected, a new one would be drawn up by officials elected by the people, rather than ones chosen by parliament as for the current text.
The two issues – the decree and the referendum – were at the heart of the anti-Mursi protests that turned violent this week with clashes on Wednesday that killed seven people and wounded hundreds. The opposition refused Mursi’s offer for dialogue as long as those two decisions stood.
But on Saturday, the powerful military, in its first statement since the crisis began, told both sides to talk, warning that otherwise Egypt would descend “into a dark tunnel with disastrous results – and that is something we will not allow.”
