Egypt’s ruling military council toughened its tone against Tahrir protests on Friday, June 22, dismissing complaints from protesters that it was entrenching its rule and blaming the Muslim Brotherhood for announcing early results of Presidential elections as reported in Egypt’s well known web portal Onislam.net.
The SCAF, which took over when veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak was ousted by a popular uprising in February last year, also delivered veiled criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood, charging that efforts were afoot to pre-empt the outcome of a hard-fought presidential election.
But it insisted that it remained neutral in the deeply polarizing election run-off between the Brotherhood’s candidate Mohamed Mursi and Mubarak’s last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq.
“Protecting the status of state institutions is a national responsibility for all. Any attack on them threatens the stability and national security of Egypt,” said a SCAF statement read in the bureaucratic language favored by the generals.
“Any attempts to harm public or private interests will be confronted with utmost firmness and strength by the police and armed forces within the law.”
“Anticipating the announcement of the presidential election results before they are announced officially is unjustifiable, and is one of the main causes of division and confusion prevailing the political arena,” the statement added.
SCAF said people were free to protest – but only if they did not disrupt daily life.
It also called the premature announcement of results in last weekend’s presidential election “unjustifiable” and a prime cause of the tension.
The statement added the army had no power to repeal the dissolution of parliament, saying that was down to judges who ruled that some of January’s election rules were unconstitutional.
“The verdicts issued by the judiciary are executed in the name of the people and refraining from implementing these verdicts is a crime punishable by law,” it said, a warning to Islamists who are challenging the dissolution.
In a last-minute decree issued last Sunday, the next president’s powers have been curbed following an order by the ruling military council after it ordered the dissolution of the Islamist-led parliament.