 | Shaddup and go home ya old coot... |
CAIRO: Former US President Jimmy Carter said on Thursday, after meeting Egypt's military rulers and political parties, the army was unlikely to surrender all of its powers by mid-2012, highlighting the potential for further power struggles.
| Nothing gets past Jimmuah... |
| The gentleman has a very special talent for seeing the obvious and getting it all wrong. |
"I think to have an abrupt change in the totality of the military authority at the end of June or this year is more than we can expect," Carter told Reuters in an interview.
"A clear message has to go out that in the future for Egypt, whenever that time comes, there will be complete civilian control over all aspects of the government affairs and the military will play its role under the direction of an elected president and an elected parliament."
| Sure, that happens all the time in the Arab world... |
Carter, 87, is in Cairo with a group from his human rights organization, the Carter Center, to help monitor the end of the final round of Egypt's first parliamentary elections since Mubarak was ousted.
"My guess is that the military would like to retain as much control as possible for as long as possible, still accepting the results of the revolution and the election," he said.
| I guessed that from Chicago... |
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate said he met with Egyptian political parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood, leading in the parliamentary vote, who also foresaw the military rulers holding on to power beyond the scheduled June date.
"When I talked with the Muslim Brotherhood and others, they contemplate a period extended beyond the end of June where the military might have some special privileges," he said. "But they should be terminated at the end of a certain period, and the permanent limits on the military should be clearly expressed in a constitution to be written in the next two or three months."
The new parliament's first job will be appointing a 100-strong assembly to write a new constitution which will be violated when convenient define the president's powers and parliament's clout in the new Egypt.
| They've done that a few times already. The King had a constitution. Nasser had one, as did Sadat and Mubarak. Never seemed to impede anything they wanted to do. It was like the 'prime directive' on Star Trek; you only heard about it when it was being violated in one way or another. |
All Egypt's rulers have come from the army since a 1952 coup against the monarchy. The military keeps its internal budget and business interests from civilian oversight.
| Perfectly 'constitutional', too... |
Carter said he expected Egypt's new government to focus more than the previous leadership on Palestinian rights as highlighted under the accord.
"This new government will probably be much more concerned about the rights of the Palestinians than have the previous rulers or leaders in Egypt, but in my opinion that will be conducive to a better prospect of peace between Israel and its neighbors," he said.
Carter added that any external military intervention in Syria, engulfed for ten months in a political upheaval that has killed thousands, would be a "tragic mistake."
"I think the Arab League, obviously, is not a strong organization, it doesn't have the major staff that it requires, but here [on Syria] the Arab League might encourage that sort of discussion to accommodate the interests of both parties and to do it peacefully," Carter said.
| Because the Arab League is weak, it can 'encourage discussion'. No wonder Jimmuah was a miserable failure as president. |
"But to try to resolve it by military means, as has been the case in the past, or by the intrusion of military forces from the outside, I think would be a tragic mistake." |