Egypt’s new laws entrench president’s rule

Egypt’s president has approved new legal amendments that further exclude any serious competitors from elections and give the military greater control over civilian affairs, a leading rights group said yesterday.

The amendments bar retired military officers from running for presidential, parliamentary or local elections without permission from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Current military officers had already been prohibited from running in elections or joining political groups. The amendments also empower the minister of defence to appoint military advisers to governors in Egypt’s 27 provinces.

“This is clearly a move by [President Abdel Fattah] el-Sissi and his government to restrict the kind of opponents they or their allies would face in any elections,” Hussein Baoumi, Amnesty International’s Egypt researcher, said. “In other cases we have seen more direct repression, like handing down convictions that bar candidates from running over a number of years.”

The government denies allegations that the law aims to further stamp out opposition.

El-Sissi has sought to stifle nearly all criticism since coming to power in 2013. As defence minister he led the military’s removal of the country’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, amid nationwide protests against his rule.

In the years since, security forces have jailed Islamist political opponents and secular activists, including many of those behind the 2011 uprising, frequently on dubious charges of supporting the Brotherhood — now banned as a terrorist organisation.