Egypt’s Junta, Islamists Fight About Morsi’s Oath

Egypt’s presidency planned to reveal on Thursday how Islamist President-elect Mohamed Morsi would be sworn in at the weekend in a ceremony whose symbolism the Muslim Brotherhood and interim military rulers have both struggled to shape.

With the oath-taking and a planned army handover of power to the president only two days away, there was still no official word on how an important moment in Egypt’s transition would unfold.

Army sources said the handover segment would be delayed from Saturday, without giving a reason. They set no new date.

Morsi’s office promised a statement later in the day but did not say if differences with the army had been resolved.

The Brotherhood wanted the president sworn in by parliament in line with past custom, but an army-backed court dissolved the Islamist-dominated lower house earlier this month. The generals said the same court should hear Morsi take his oath of office.

The army council that has ruled Egypt since pushing former President Hosni Mubarak aside to calm a popular uprising last year has promised to hand back control by July 1.

Yet the military has demonstrated fairly crudely that it intends to keep its hands firmly on the real levers of power.

Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, 76, who served as Mubarak’s defense minister for two decades, will keep that post in Morsi’s future cabinet, an army council member said on Wednesday night.

“The government will have a defense minister who is head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces,” Major-General Mohamed Assar said on private CBC television.

Asked by the talk show host if this meant Tantawi would keep his defense portfolio, Assar said: “Exactly. What is wrong with that? He is the head of the SCAF, the defense minister and the commander of the armed forces.”

The military council led by Tantawi has managed a turbulent and sometimes violent transition period in which Egypt’s first free parliamentary and presidential elections have taken place.

Assar’s assertion that Tantawi would remain in place even before Morsi has been sworn in on Saturday illustrates the limits the military seeks to set on his presidential authority.

Morsi, whose aides say he will name a woman and a Christian among six vice-presidents, has been meeting leaders of Egypt’s political and religious communities ahead of his swearing-in.

After Morsi received political party leaders on Thursday, the head of the hard-line Salafi Islamist Nour Party, Emad Abdel Gaffour said the meeting had focused on national reconciliation.

“We also called for a restructuring of the Interior Ministry to ensure past abuses are never repeated,” he told Reuters.