EGYPT - Secularist Split, Imperfect Political Situation

Frequent changes to a nations constitution is a sign of and unstable government.  Also when a chief executive can declare a constitution null and void, or rewrite it on his own, is a sing of dictatorship.

"Clashes Quieted, Egypt Tries to Move Ahead Amid 'Imperfect' Political Situation" PBS Newshour 9/10/2013

Excerpt

GWEN IFILL (Newshour):  We return to another troubled spot in the Middle East, Egypt.

Two months ago, the army deposed the country's Islamist president, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi.  He was elected after the heady 2011 uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak. In Egypt, secular forces -- now Egypt's secular forces have turned the tables. But does this mean more democracy for Egypt or a return to the past?

Our chief foreign affairs correspondent, Margaret Warner, reports from Cairo.

MARGARET WARNER (Newshour):  In the wood panel chamber of the upper house of parliament, a committee rewriting Egypt's constitution for the second time in as many years convened its initial session Sunday.

It was an over-50 crowd of statesmen, clerics, business leaders and generals, and one incongruous figure, a T-shirt-wearing young man whom virtually no one had heard of six months ago.  The 20-something being welcomed so heartily was Mahmoud Badr, one of the co-founders of the Tamarod, or rebel movement, which led a petition drive in the spring against President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood-led government, triggering massive nationwide protests on June 30.

Three days later, on July 3, the army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, appeared on television to say Egypt's armed forces had removed the first democratically elected leader in the country's history.  One of the Badr's fellow Tamarod co-founders, young Mahmoud el-Saka, has no apologies for turning to the military to oust a president he voted for, but came to believe was serving the Brotherhood's Islamist agenda, not Egypt's.