Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood on Tuesday rejected a new timetable announced by the military-backed interim leadership that sets a fast track for amending the Islamist-drafted constitution and holding new parliamentary and presidential elections by early next year.
Essam el-Erian, a senior Brotherhood figure and deputy head of its Freedom and Justice Party, rejected the transition timetable, saying it takes the country “back to zero.”
“The cowards are not sleeping, but Egypt will not surrender. The people created their constitution with their votes,” he wrote on his Facebook page, referring to the constitution that Islamists pushed to finalisation and was passed in a national referendum during Morsi’s year in office.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s army chief said the military will not accept political “manoeuvering,” in a thinly veiled warning to the only Islamist party that sided with the Army’s removal of President Mohammed Morsi, but has since had frictions with other factions over forming a new leadership.
Defence Minister Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said on Tuesday in a statement carried by state TV that “the future of the nation is too important and sacred for maneuvers or hindrance, whatever the justifications.”
The quick issuing of the transition plan showed how Egypt’s new leadership is shrugging off Islamists’ vows to reverse the military’s ousting of President Mohammed Morsi and wants to quickly entrench a post-Morsi political system.
Egypt’s military also likely aims to show the United States and other Western nations that the country is moving quickly back to an elected civilian leadership. Washington has expressed concern over the removal of Egypt’s first freely elected president, and if the US Government determines that the army’s move qualifies as a coup it would have to cut off more than a $1 billion in aid to Egypt, mostly to the military.