CAIRO, Nov 26, 2012 (AFP)
CAIRO, Nov 26, 2012 (AFP)
The main developments in Egypt since the election of the country’s first Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, in May:
– May 23-24, 2012: Egyptians vote in the first round of the country’s first free presidential election, 15 months after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising.
– June 14: Egypt’s constitutional court rules that the Islamist-dominated parliament elected after Mubarak’s overthrow is invalid.
– June 16-17: Egyptians vote in a second-round runoff between Morsi and Mubarak’s last premier Ahmed Shafiq.
– June 17: The ruling military council issues an amended constitutional document giving it sweeping powers, including legislative control.
– June 30: Morsi takes the oath of office to become Egypt’s first freely elected leader and its first head of state since Mubarak’s overthrow.
– July 8: Morsi issues a decree annulling the Supreme Court’s dissolution of the Islamist-dominated parliament. On the 10th, Egypt’s top court freezes Morsi’s decree reinstating parliament.
– July 14-15: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets Morsi and Egypt’s top military leaders.
– July 24: Morsi names former irrigation minister Hisham Qandil as prime minister. On August 2, he unveils a new cabinet that retains military chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi as defence minister while giving the ruling Islamists and their allies several portfolios.
– August 5: Unidentified gunmen kill 16 border guards in Egypt near the border with Israel. The army launches an offensive against Islamist groups in the Sinai Peninsula. Morsi orders spy chief Murad Muwafi to retire.
– August 12: Morsi replaces Defence Minister Tantawi and sends him into retirement, and scraps the constitutional document which handed sweeping powers to the military. He appoints a vice president Mahmud Mekki.
– August 27: Morsi names a liberal Christian, a hardline Islamist and a woman as assistants in a move aimed at reaching out to rival groups.
– November 16: Morsi denounces the Israeli offensive against Gaza as “blatant aggression against humanity,” and says “Cairo will not leave Gaza on its own”.
– November 21: US President Barack Obama calls Morsi to thank him for his role in negotiating a truce between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.
– November 22: Morsi assumes sweeping new powers and dismisses prosecutor general Abdel Meguid Mahmud, prompting prominent opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei to accuse him of usurping authority and becoming a “new pharoah”.
– November 23: First protests against Morsi’s new powers, including the start of a sit-in at Cairo’s emblematic Tahrir Square.
– Monday, November 26: Morsi meets senior judges in a bid to defuse the protests, which have so far left two people dead, one among pro-regime activists and the other a protester.
The two sides prepare for new protest marches on Tuesday.
