Military remains in power in Egypt

The moderate Islamist Mohamed Morsi on Monday declared himself the winner of Egypt's first free presidential elections, only to be contradicted by his rival Ahmed Shafik. But regardless of who the winner is, the true power will remain in the hands of the military, the left-liberal daily Der Standard writes: "Egypt now has a caricature of a president and no parliament. The formation of a new government will no doubt be left to the new president, because what else can the military council mean with its 'handover' to the civilians? But there are limitations on this point as well: In its complementary constitutional declaration on Sunday, the military council named its own chairman as minister of defence. The constitution is also written by the military - and the constitutional judges (named by Hosni Mubarak) will have the last say on this constitution. They are the ones who will decide if an article of the new constitution contradicts the 'goals of the revolution'. Now that's what you call chutzpah.”

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