Egypt Gets a "Constitutional Declaration"

If I'm blogging a lot about Egypt, it's because much is happening there; it's being overshadowed in the media by Libya and Syria, but it's worthy of note.

Today the Armed Forces Council announced that Presidential elections will be held by November, a couple of months after the Parliamentary elections due in September. It also issued its anticipated butr delayed Constitutional Declaration. This turned out to be not just an embodiment of the recently passed referendum, but rather a 62-article interim constitution, to see the country through elections, after which a new permanent constitution will be drafted. The Arabic text can be found here; as usual the Armed Forces Council posted it to their Facebook page. If I find an English text I'll link to it.

It reduces the power of the appointed upper house, the Shura Council, and makes the various changes approved in the referendum, but it keeps masny aspects of the 1971 constitution, including the provision that half of he lower house consist of workers and farmers, a relic of the socialist ideology of the Nasser era.