The election of Mohamed Morsi marks the first partial transfer of authority to an elected, civilian president since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. Morsi is also the first Egyptian without a background as an army general to become president since independence.
Serious concerns remain however about the extent to which the military will continue to interfere with civilian authority in Egypt, given recent military decrees that expanded the military's role and granted it legislative authority after the court-ordered dissolution of Parliament. The military has given itself a substantive role in the constitution-drafting process, including the power to veto proposed provisions. The decree on June 17 by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which it called a "Constitutional Declaration," greatly expands the military's powers in domestic law enforcement (article 53 of the decree). A June 18 decree re-structured the defunct National Defense Council, giving the military a controlling role on as yet-undefined issues of national security, further limiting civilian oversight.
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