Egyptian junta proclaims a military dictatorship
With the issuance of a constitutional decree Sunday night, the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) finalized the coup it staged last Thursday and proclaimed a military dictatorship.
Only two days before the run-off of the Egyptian presidential election, the US-backed junta had dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament and the constitutent assembly, which had been tasked with the drafting of a new constitution. With the constitutional decree, an amendment to the military-authored constitutional declaration issued March 30, 2011, SCAF is asserting full control over political life in Egypt. Under these conditions, the results of the run-off of the presidential election between Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister under ousted President Hosni Mubarak, and Mohamed Mursi, the Islamist candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), have little significance. The future president will be nothing more than a figurehead of SCAF.
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