Egypt court annuls Islamist-led house

Egypt's top court Thursday paved the way for the ruling military to assume parliament's powers by annulling the Islamist-led house while allowing Hosni Mubarak's last premier to stand in this weekend's presidential election. The rulings, two days ahead of the fiercely contested election between the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Mursi and the ousted Mubarak's last premier Ahmed Shafiq, could throw the country into further political disarray. A military source said the court's ruling technically meant that the military, in power since Mubarak's ouster last year, would assume legislative powers. The ruling generals have been in closed session since the court ruling on Thursday afternoon. "We don't want it (the power) but according to the court decision and that law, it reverts back to us," the source said. The head of the constitutional court, Faruq Sultan, told AFP that the decision "voids" parliament and must be respected by the authorities. "It voids parliament, not in the meaning of dissolves," he said. "But the constitutional court's ruling is binding on all state authorities and all people," he said. The court based its decision on what it said were illegal articles in the law governing parliamentary elections that reserved a third of seats for directly voted independents, or party members, and the rest for party lists. Egypt's military decided on a complex electoral system in which voters cast ballots for party lists which made up two thirds of parliament and also for individual candidates for the remaining seats in the lower house. The individual candidates were meant to be "independents," but members of political parties were subsequently allowed to run, giving the powerful Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) an advantage. The court also ruled that a law drafted by parliament to bar senior former regime officials such as Shafiq from standing in elections was unconstitutional. The law applies to those who served in the 10 years prior to Mubarak's ouster on February 11, 2011 after an 18-day popular uprising. Mohammed al-Beltagi, a senior member of the FJP which dominates parliament, described the court's decision on parliament as part of a "military coup." A series of measures, including giving the military powers of arrest, and then the court ruling were "a complete coup through which the military council erases the most honourable period in this nation's history," he said in a statement. FJP leaders went into a closed meeting after the court's decision to consider their next option, one of them told AFP. Their candidate Mohammed Mursi had just scraped by Shafiq to win the first round of the presidential election last month. Outside the court dozens of people gathered to demand the application of the law, amid heavy security. "That's it, the revolution is over," one protester shouted, as others chanted against the military. "I reject Shafiq and Mursi, and if the court lets Shafiq stand or if there is a referendum on Mursi, we will go back to Tahrir," the epicentre of protests that toppled Mubarak, said writer Samara Sultan, 30, before the hearing. "We want the court to fix the parliament and the only way to do that is to repeat" the election, she said. Ahmed Said, a film-maker from Cairo, said parliament was "full of people who use religion and don't care about Egypt. We need people who can make a new Egypt. "The elections were a fraud and we need the court to order them to be repeated. Shafiq is like Mubarak and we will never accept him," he said. Shafiq was initially barred from standing in the election in accordance with the law passed by parliament in April. But later that month the electoral commission accepted an appeal from Shafiq against his disqualification and the case was referred to the court. Thursday's ruling came just two days before the landmark run-off to choose a successor to Mubarak. In the first round of voting on May 23-24 -- which saw 13 candidates stand for the top job -- Mursi won 24.7 percent of the vote, slightly ahead of Shafiq's 23.6 percent. The race has polarised the nation between those who fear a return to the old regime under Shafiq's leadership, and those wanting to keep religion out of politics and who accuse the Muslim Brotherhood of monopolising power since last year's revolt. The next president will inherit a struggling economy, deteriorating security and the challenge of uniting a nation divided by the uprising and its sometimes deadly aftermath, but his powers are yet to be defined by a new constitution.