Country ... Egypt
Egypt's Morsi 'empowered' by army shake-up ...

August 12 2012 ... Egyptian media hails president's decision to dismiss powerful defence minister and curb military's sweeping powers.

COMMENTARY
In a democracy, the power of a President is derived from the will of the people. The global media tends to focus on news associated with process rather than the news that is more fundamental but also more conceptual. The moves made by Egypt's President Morsi seem, at first sight, to be ones that can be expected to have the very widespread approval of the people who had power over a year ago to get the former President Mubarak removed. While as much of the framework of law as possible should be retained to help in the governance of the country in the short term, this rule of law should not, as SCAF seemed to do some weeks back, be used to sideline the elected President in favor of SCAF as the supreme decision making body.

I am not privy to the whole of this story, to what happened in the past few days behind closed doors, but Presdient Morsi has my respect for what he seems to have accomplished in this reorganization of the players in the system of governance in Egypt. The story is only just starting ... but for the people who started the Egyptian Revolution, this has been a good few hours. Hopefully the people who made the Egyptian Revollution possible will not be disappointed in President Morsi as the story evolves.

As I say over and over again, the Arab Spring was partly about freedom, and partly about economics and equity. President Morsi can help with freedom through the reform of State instituions that constrain freedom and by opening up the political process ... but economics and equity is more difficult. In my view the capitalist money profit market system is failing in many important ways and needs rethinking on an urgent basis. During the Second World War a conference was convened at Bretton Woods in the face of fears that thw world would return to an even greater depression after the war and the so-called Bretton Woods Institutions were born ... the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD or the World Bank) and the IMF. These institutions have maybe outlived their usefulness, but they helped rebuild Europe after the war.

Something similar is now needed to address the failing capitalist money profit market system that has made rather few investors very rich while leaving far too many people unemployed or underemployed. There nees to be mechanisms that will make it possible for more economic activity to take place and more people able to improve their quality of life. People want to work, but there are no employers .... no entrepreneurs interested in economic activity that does good and satisfies needs ... no investors and finance so that needed economic activity can take place.

When the financial system was in crisis ... and now as it continues in crisis in parts of Europe ... the money system ... the monetary economic system and the Central Bankers have the ability to 'print money' to keep the banking and money sector from collapsing.

When the value based economic system is in crisis ... as it is with massive unemployment especially of educated youth, and massive amounts of unmet needs and quality of life far lower than it can be and should be ... the system has nothing. The default is to expect the money profit financial system and the money profit capitalist market system to solve the problem. It will not solve the problem because it was never designed to adddress this sort of problem.

But maybe ... just maybe ... an emerging new asset class is emerging in a value based market system. In this environment new financial instruments can be created to fund what needs to be done outside the mechanistic and legalistic constraints of the prevailing money profit capital markets. Hundreds of initiatives are ongoing at various stages of development ... and among these initiatives thare are some that could scale to be the core solution to the crisis of the value based economy.

TrueValueMetrics is part of this family of initiatives ... bringing a system of metrics to suit this value environment.
Peter Burgess

Egypt's Morsi 'empowered' by army shake-up Egyptian media hails president's decision to dismiss powerful defence minister and curb military's sweeping powers.

Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi has emerged empowered after a 'revolutionary' decision to dismiss his powerful defence minister and curb the military's sweeping powers, the country’s media has said.

In a surprise move on Sunday, Morsi retired the powerful defence minister, Field Marshal Tantawi, 76, and armed forces chief of staff Sami Anan, and scrapped a constitutional document that gave the military legislative and other powers.

The state-run Al-Akhbar newspaper said the dismissal of Tantawi, who headed the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) for more than a year after massive streets protests forced Mubarak to step down, was a 'revolutionary decision'.

'The Brothers officially in power,' declared the independent Al-Watan daily, referring to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group which backs Morsi and through whose ranks he rose before his election triumph.

However, not all media welcomed the move, in Cairo, the independent daily Al-Shorouk expressed concern over the action, saying it meant that Morsi was accumulating 'much bigger prerogatives than those of Mubarak'.

President's explanation

Thousands of Brotherhood supporters flooded Cairo's Tahrir Square - cradle of the revolution that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak last year - to celebrate on Sunday.

'The people support the president's decision,' the crowd chanted.

Others mocked Tantawi's departure, presented officially as a retirement. 'Marshal, tell the truth, did Morsi fire you?' they said.

In a late night speech on Sunday, Morsi denied trying to marginalise the army, saying he was acting in the interests of the country.

Al Jazeera looks back on the career of Field Marshal Tantawi

'I never intended, through my decisions, to marginalise or be unjust toward anyone, but rather to act so that we advance toward a better future, with a new generation, long-awaited new blood,' he said.

'I did not intend to embarrass institutions,' he added, saying he had 'the interest of the country in mind'.

Morsi also amended the interim constitution to deny the military any role in public policy-making, the budget and legislation, and the right to pick a constituent assembly drafting a permanent constitution for post-Mubarak Egypt.

'The president has decided to annul the constitutional declaration adopted on June 17' by the SCAF, Morsi's spokesman Youssef Ali said.

Mustafa al-Najar, former member of the dissolved Egyptian parliament, said Morsi's move was a huge step in the transition towards democracy.

'There are no risks of either rough, nor smooth (future) military coups against the Egyptian president, as some people used to believe, al-Najar said.

“The scene has been finalised by introducing a satisfactory settlement for many parties. We have accomplished the greater part of the transitional period that will be concluded by drafting the constitution.'

Border attack

Al Jazeera’s Rawya Rageh, reporting from Cairo, said: 'The country may be without a constitution, but there are constitutional declarations that specify the job description of the president, and it is perfectly within the realm of his authority to hire and fire senior government officials.'

'But I guess the talk about all of this is emanating from the fact that this was such a surprising and bold move.

'Morsi who did not want to defy the military initially, seized on the opportunity of the border attack to end the political career of one of the longest serving military men in the country.'

Sixteen guards were killed and others wounded in the attack by fighters on a police station in the Sinai peninsula near the border with Israel on August 5.

The president sacked two senior generals and the intelligence chief after the attack.

'Exercising authority'

Mourad Ali, a senior official with the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, which fielded Morsi in the May-June presidential polls, praised the president.

'Given the circumstances, this is the right time to make changes in the military institution,' the official said. 'He is a strong president, and he is exercising his authority.'

Sunday's announcements marked a new twist in uneasy ties between Morsi and the army, testing the balance of power between the first civilian president in Egypt's history and a military that had moved to limit his power.

Tantawi, who had served as Mubarak's defence minister for two decades, was replaced by replaced by Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, a member of the SCAF.

The field marshall, as well as chief of staff Anan, were awarded the Greatest Nile Collar, Egypt's most prestigious award, and both were retained as presidential advisors.

But Morsi also shuffled members of the SCAF into other strategic public sector jobs, Vice Admiral Mohab Mamish, the head of the navy, was tasked with overseeing the Suez Canal Authority, a key generator of revenues.

Morsi also appointed judge Mahmud Mekki as his deputy, MENA reported, making him only the second vice president to be named in Egypt in 30 years.

Israeli concern

In Israel, a government official expressed 'great concern' over developments in Egypt while Israeli media suggested the removal of figures such as Tantawi would force Israel to seek new interlocutors in Egypt.

'The change of security and military leadership in Egypt will require Israel to open channels of dialogue with the new figures, not all of whom are familiar faces,' an analysis in Tel Aviv's Maariv newspaper said.

Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979, and although ties were frosty, security co-operation between the two countries' armies remained solid.

'It is too early to say what will happen because everything is evolving in Egypt, but we are following what is happening there with great concern,' an Israeli official told the AFP news agency.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies