They might be highly controversial. However, President Mohammed Morsi's decrees, in which he has given himself sweeping new powers, are hardly surprising. Two hours before his spokesman unveiled the decrees at a televised press conference, hundreds of backers from Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood flocked to the Supreme Court building in central Cairo. Waving portraits of Morsi and the national flag, they chanted: “The people want to purge the judiciary." Their chants, reverberating across the busy commercial area, left no doubt about the target of the imminent presidential decrees. The Supreme Court has long been regarded as a symbol of Egypt's judiciary. Its building also houses the office of the top Prosecutor. Morsi's relations with the judiciary have soured since the Supreme Constitutional Court in July overruled his order to reinstate the People's Assembly (Lower House of Parliament), which had been dissolved by the same court one month earlier. Their relations further worsened last month when the judges rallied in support of the Prosecutor-General, Abdel-Maguid Mahmoud, whom Morsi had briefly sacked. (Mahmoud, appointed under the now-toppled president Hosni Mubarak, was last week replaced by Morsi after the Islamist President gave himself the right to name the Prosecutor-General.) With Thursday's constitutional declaration, his second since taking office in June, Morsi has exempted his decrees from judicial review and legal challenges. The showing up of Muslim Brotherhood followers in their hundreds outside the Supreme Court on Thursday – two hours before Morsi's decrees were announced – apparently embarrassed the presidency. The presidential spokesman, Yasser Ali, vehemently denied that the Islamist group's leaders had been notified of the decrees before their announcement. Nonetheless, Ali failed to provide a convincing explanation for the sudden congregation of the Brotherhood outside the court building. Some politicians and members of the public expressed disappointment at the idea that the decrees had been discussed with or at least relayed to the Brotherhood leaders beforehand. On taking office as Egypt 's first elected civilian President on June 30, Morsi pledged to be a president for all – a promise he has emphasised on several occasions. His critics have frequently claimed that his decisions are shaped by the group's Supreme Guide and inner circle. In protests against the formerly banned group, their opponents have frequently chanted, “Down with the Supreme Guide's rule," echoing worries that the Brotherhood hold sway over presidential decisions. Fuelling these worries is the fact that senior officials in the Brotherhood have in recent months been causing problems for Morsi by making media remarks, which have been widely interpreted as reflecting his stance towards the opposition or indicative of presidential decisions in the making. In several instances, the presidency has had to issue denials. The Brotherhood officials have every right to advocate Morsi's latest decrees and portray them as aimed at “protecting the revolution from the Mubarak regime's leftovers". Still, they must clearly explain how their followers happened to gather en masse in the very place that was hours later hard hit by Morsi's decrees. Failing to do this will cast aspersions over the independence of the presidential decision-making. Worse, it will heighten Egypt 's political polarisation that threatens to thrust the nation into a vortex of violence. This week's bloody clashes between Morsi's supporters and opponents augur ill.
