Given the general atmosphere glorifying the Armed Forces, and Defence Minister Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi in particular for his decision to side with the majority of Egyptians who demanded the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi on 30 June, observers expected a smooth debate on articles related to the military in the 50-member committee tasked with amending the now suspended 2012 constitution. Yet discussions between two senior army generals and members of the committee's executive office lasted for more than four hours on Sunday and ended without any agreement being reached. Informed sources say differences centred on the army's insistence on maintaining much of the same language as the 2012 constitution which states that “the minister of defence is the general commander of the Armed Forces and should be appointed from its ranks, conditional to the approval of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces”. The army representatives also wanted to retain the National Defence Council's mandate, which currently provides a single figure for the military budget without details, and allow civilians to be tried by military courts in incidents concerning the army and its property. Several members of the committee who attended the closed meeting demanded that the president appoint the defence minister, without prior approval from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and argued for the posts of defence minister and general commander of the Armed Forces to be separated. The latter, they said, should be the army chief-of-staff. They also wanted senior members of the People's Assembly National Security Committee to be involved in discussions of the army's budget and called for the jurisdiction of military courts to be restricted to forces' personnel. Committee head Amr Moussa decided to form a smaller group, headed by Abdel-Gelil Mustafa, to agree on the final wording, said committee spokesman Mohamed Salmawy during a news conference on Monday. They should, he added, be able to finish their work in a week. Besides Mustafa the group includes the army's representatives, generals Mohamed Al-Assar and Mamdouh Shahin, and two or three members of the larger body appointed by interim President Adli Mansour in early September to “amend” in 60 working days the suspended constitution. They are expected to conclude their work by the end of November or early December after which the revised constitution will be put to a popular referendum. One informed source from the 50-member committee told Al-Ahram Weekly that in a country that's been practically controlled by the military establishment since late army officer Gamal Abdel-Nasser overthrew King Farouk in 1952, issues pertaining to the constitutional status of the military “were unlikely to be solved except in direct meetings with Defence Minister Al-Sisi”. It is ironic that while the Muslim Brotherhood's supporters now claim to spearhead calls for civilian control over the military and have been chanting slogans against the army since 30 June, when president Morsi was in office the Brotherhood group did not contest a single article relating to the army in the 2012 constitution. Five days after Morsi's ouster on 3 July interim President Mansour issued a constitutional declaration laying out the transitional roadmap, starting with the formation of a 10-member committee made up of judges and deans of faculties of law to introduce initial amendments to the 2012 constitution. While several articles were rewritten or cancelled, including some key articles of concern to Islamic parties such as the Nour, articles concerning the Armed Forces were left untouched. The only change was their numbering: articles 194, 195 and 196 in the 2012 constitution are now articles 170, 171 and 173. In a seminar organised on Sunday by Al-Tahrir newspaper on articles related to governance in what most civilian parties hope will be a radically new constitution and not an amendment of the 2012 Brotherhood copy, Abdel-Ghaffar Shokr, leader of the leftist Popular Socialist Alliance Party and deputy chairman of the National Council on Human Rights, said he agreed that the defence minister should not serve as general commander of the Armed Forces since this created “a clear imbalance in favour of the army on all issues to the military” Shokr also took issue with the army representatives' insistence in Sunday's closed meeting that the “Supreme Council of the Armed Forces” must first approve any laws related to the military. “The Council of the Armed Forces,” he said, “should be consulted only. The position of defence minister is mainly political, and even the president's powers and decisions on the army should be overseen by elected members of parliament.” The leftist leader who maintains close contacts with the majority of the 50-member committee also said that the army's extensive non-military economic interests should be separated from the army's general budget and overseen by regular government monitoring bodies. And while the draft constitution prepared by the 10-member committee retains the 2012 article on the formation of a National Defence Council and a National Security Council, Shokr argued that there was no need for the second. Like human rights groups and other activists, Shokr was vehement on the need to end the trial of civilians in military courts. Civilian laws were sufficient, he said, to punish citizens for all sorts of crimes, including those related to the military. Some members of the 50-member committee suggested that a special prosecution office be devoted to violations related to the military to assure a speedy process. While key leftist and liberal members of the 50-member committee will keep fighting for greater civilian control over the military they do not need to be in the majority. A two-third vote is needed to approve all articles. Given the small number — 50 — of those involved in the drafting it was hoped changes would be approved by consensus. Some participants in the seminar at which Shokr spoke implied that the demands of leftist and liberal activists lacked popular backing. “Without the army's positive response to the demands of the majority of Egyptians who rejected Morsi's rule on 30 June the situation would have looked very different in Egypt now,” says Gamal Abdel-Gawad, former director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. “We should protect our army, keep it away from political and ideological disputes, and prevent any attempts by political parties to infiltrate its ranks.” Abdel-Gawad not only wants to keep the 2012 articles on the army unchanged, he also says “we should admit the current reality, and the fact that the commander of the army [Al-Sisi] is the most popular figure in Egypt now, amid increasing demands that he runs for president.” Pro-25 January Revolution youth who attended Al-Tahrir seminar were upset by Abdel-Gawad's comments. He went on to demand the removal of any legal obstacles that might prevent Al-Sisi from running for president. “It is unrealistic now to prevent General Al-Sisi from running for president. Any other option could lead to an unstable political system in which the defence minister enjoys greater political power and popular support than the person who may be elected president.”
