Advisory Council head Mansour Hassan
At the first meeting of Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces's (SCAF) newly created Advisory Council on Sunday, former information minister, Mansour Hassan was
announced as the elected president.
Hassan stated that the Council’s first meeting with SCAF is scheduled to be on Tuesday to discuss the draft law of presidential elections and preparing the country's constitution after parliamentary elections are over.
He said in a press statement that the meeting agenda would include the subject of victims of the January 25 Revolution, the abolition of military trials for civilians, ending the state of emergency, and determining the minimum and maximum wages.
He also assured that the Council’s role was limited to assist the SCAF, and provide opinion and advice on any issue that concerns the public opinion.
Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of the (SCAF) had announced last week the formation of an Advisory Council, which includes 30 members.
According to SCAF, the council’s task will be assisting the ruling military in several headline-grabbing issues, including introducing a new law to guide presidential elections and drawing up a constituent assembly to draft Egypt's new constitution.
Days after the advisory council was announced, SCAF’s Major-General Mukhtar Mulla hinted to journalists that the council would have the authority to “coordinate” with the incoming parliament in choosing members of the constituent assembly – an authority originally reserved for parliament alone.
Mulla asserted that this would make the constituent assembly “more representative” and limit the impact of recent Islamist electoral successes.
Major-General Shahin however denied that the council would play a role in picking the members of the consitutional assembly, asserting that Mulla was only stating his opinion.
On Sunday morning, Shahin stated that the only body with authority to appoint constituent assembly members would be the incoming parliament. He also pointed out that parliament’s ten appointed members would not have this authority.
A day after Mulla’s statements, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) withdrew its representatives from the proposed council in response to the new authorities granted to the Advisory Council.
The Brotherhood said that the Advisory Council would try to reproduce a document of constitutional principles proposed by former Deputy Prime Minister Ali El-Selmy, which regulated the selection of the constituent assembly — reducing the parliament’s power in the process — and guaranteeing the secrecy of the military budget.
The Brotherhood’s statement added: “We said it before and we still and will continue to say that we respect the will of the people and accept their choice, because these are the basics of the democracy we call for and abide by. Hence, we call on everyone – and all of them belong to democracy – to respect the will of the people and accept their choice. Those who were unsuccessful this time, should endeavour to serve the people even better, in order to earn their support in times to come.”
Th Islamist movemenet even called for Egyptians to make the second and third rounds of the elections even better and more effective than the first, and to avoid repeating events that marred the previous round, so the whole process would come out "closer to perfection than ever before".
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All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©
Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©
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