[davidbfpo]

Omar Ashour weighs in with a commentary:

The new Constitutional Declaration, the Revolution Protection Law, and the new presidential decrees have several aims:
To remove the public prosecutor, a Mubarak-era holdover who failed to convict dozens of that regime’s officials who had been charged with corruption and/or abuse of power;
To protect the remaining elected and indirectly elected institutions (all of which have an Islamist majority) from dissolution by Constitutional Court judges (mostly Mubarak-era holdovers);
To bring about retrials of Mubarak’s security generals;
To compensate and provide pensions for the victims of repression during and after the revolution.

While most Egyptians may support Morsi’s aims, a dramatic expansion of presidential power in order to attain them was, for many, a step too far.

He concludes:

he security sector may, it seems, emerge from this crisis as the only winner. It will enforce the rule of law, but only for a price. That price will be reflected in the constitution, as well as in the unwritten rules of Egypt’s new politics. This constitutes a much more serious and lasting threat to Egypt’s democratization than do Morsi’s temporary decrees.

Link:http://www.project-syndicate.org/com...rYkGVARAKXr.99