Egypt closes schools in Sinai towns as area inches toward open war

[happyslug]

36. Are we discussing Marack or Sisi????

Morsi did NOT claim absolute power as President. It was claimed that he did, but he never acted like he did (thus why Sisi was NOT arrested along with the whole General Staff whose loyalty to Morsi was suspect at best).

Now Morsi did make a move to expand the power of the President, but then rescinded them.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/08/world/la-fg-egypt-morsi-20121208

As to the powers being "Grabbed" all were less than what Mubarak had AND what Sisi has at present.

From 2012:

The Brotherhood has long been suspicious of the police and Interior Ministry, which Islamists believe have networks of Mubarak loyalists aiming to disrupt Morsi’s government. The military — still the country’s most revered institution — was viewed as the better choice for instilling order and reassuring diplomats and foreign investors about Egypt’s stability and regional political stature.

The Brotherhood has placated the generals by preserving the military’s broad powers in the proposed constitution. Liberals and Christians boycotted the drafting of the charter, but the secular army approved the document, despite its references to Islamic law, known as sharia.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/08/world/la-fg-egypt-morsi-20121208

Morsi's "Grab" for power was the right to have his decision NOT reviewed by the Courts, a Court with all Mubarak appointees who are hostile to the Revolution as can be seen by their decision to rule the Parliament of Egypt was elected unconstitutionally when the Constitution is NOT yet written and Egypt has long given up on it old Mubarak's constitution:

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.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/egypts-president-morsi-takes-sweeping-new-powers/2012/11/22/8d87d716-34cb-11e2-92f0-496af208bf23_story.html

Please note Sisi took even MORE power then Morsi ever proposed taking but Sisi has NEVER been accused of giving himself "Absolute Powers" because he did but he is someone the US wants to rule Egypt.

The military regime of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has issued a raft of decrees aimed at stamping out dissent and consolidating the military’s power.

Al-Sisi, who holds absolute executive power pending parliamentary elections that may be held in December or January, issued a decree authorising the military to guard vital public facilities. Anyone attacking such facilities, including but not limited to power stations, the electricity distribution network, pipelines, oil and gas installations and the transport network, will be subject to a military trial.

The abolition of military trials for civilians was one of the key demands of the mass uprising that toppled the dictator Hosni Mubarak in February 2011......

Such have been the tensions in the universities that the authorities delayed the start of the new semester by one month, until October 11, to enable security and surveillance measures to be put in place. Since then, police have stormed at least five universities, killing one student at Alexandria University, and detaining hundreds on charges including destroying public property and violating a protest law even stricter than those laws in place during the Mubarak era.
On Monday, Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab announced that the new law applied to schools and universities, and even to school children and students, saying that they could be tried by military courts if they “sabotaged” educational facilities.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/11/01/egyp-n01.html

With the banning of Morsi’s Freedom and Justice Party, the largest political movement in Egypt, al-Sisi would seem to have little difficulty winning the presidency. But the narrow majority in these polls suggests that his popular acclaim falls short of the “broad masses of the Egyptian people who have asked me to seek this honor,” as al-Sisi claimed when announcing his candidacy this week.

Indeed, al-Sisi’s authoritarian actions — the bloody repression of Morsi’s supporters, the imprisonment of journalists and arrest warrants for academics — have likely reduced his standing among many Egyptians, even among those who supported the deposing of Morsi.

http://www.juancole.com/2014/04/egypts-personality-beatification.html

Thus you are complaining that Morsi wanted to be able to make laws NOT subject to judicial review, a judiciary hostile to him and his party. Furthermore the same Judiciary had ruled that HOW the legislature had been elected was illegal (Mostly because they side lost). Thus the Judiciary wanted to grab the power to make laws, but no one in Egypt truly trust them. This can be seen when Sisi took power, the laws he makes are NOT subject to Judicial review.

All Morsi was doing was saying till we have a properly elected Legislature, I am going to make necessary laws that must later be approved by the properly elected legislature. A man by the name of Abraham Lincoln did that in 1861. Lincoln had NO right to call up the Militia, ask for Volunteers or suspend Habeas Corpus, those are powers reserved to Congress. Lincoln did all three because he believed them to be all necessary and that Congress would approve them given the start of the Civil War. The same with what Morsi was doing, all he was "Grabbing" was the right to make needed changes in the law till such time as a legally elected legislature would be elected and formed into a legislature.

Please note Sisi not only grabbed those same powers, he also set up a Constitution where the Legislature has even less control over the Egyptian Army. Sisi is a dictator, but he has US and Israeli support, something Morsi never did have, but it was Morsi doing what Lincoln did in 1861 that is a "Grab for power" NOT what Sisi has done since the coup.