Statement: MB Warns Against Circumventing People’s Will

Statement: MB Warns Against Circumventing People’s Will

A member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the Deputy Prime Minister both have declared that the Council intends to issue a declaration that includes new constitutional articles governing the constitution. Although we have declared our position on this move and rejected it in many forms; the most recent of which were the demonstrations that took place on July 8 and July 29, the determination to proceed with this subject continued, showing bias and support to the minority that is trying to impose its control over the Egyptian people, enabling this minority to circumvent the will of the public, reflected in the referendum last March. This insistence also means aiming for the erosion of the authority of the constituent committee that would be responsible for writing the draft constitution.

 

It is apparent that all of these acts are contradictory with the rules of democracy, and such intentions and moves do symbolize and express the tyranny of the minority and its dictatorship.

We repeatedly said that people are the ones who should draft an acceptable constitution for themselves by their selected representatives, and that no party, faction or group should or could claim to be representing the people or speak on behalf of the people in this regard. And therefore this step is explicitly violating the right of the people and representing an attempt to confiscate the people’s freedom.


The spokesman of the SCAF once said that these principles would be governing the selection of the members of the founding constituent committee drafting the constitution, while he said in another occasion that these would be principles governing the constitution itself. Both of these two suggestions violate the rights of the people, and these proposals are clearly not to be mandated to any specific person, board, party, ministry or group.

The SCAF said that the issuance of these principles is pending having a national consensus over them, and still, it is clear that those who are rejecting these principles are much more in number and presence than those who agree on them. The protests and demonstrations on July 8 July 29 were the best proof of that. So, we wonder: why should this issue be raised again as long as there is no national consensus on these principles?

We hope that the SCAF does not move along trying to support or keep pace with a team that calls for the so-called “governing principles” against the will of the majority of the people; because this would provoke the masses and those who reject these principles and sticking with the rights of the people and their freedom; namely the ones who wish to stabilize the country and move in the direction towards the elections and transferring power to the civil institutions, which would be elected by the people in order to get the Army to return to its original full-time mission of protecting the homeland and the people against any external aggression.

We hope that the Army would not be responding to the pressure from this group that aims to involve the armed forces in the political sphere and lure to make the Army play the role of the protector of the Constitution and the guardian of the civil state – as they claim. We state that the “civil state” is the goal and demand for all of us; and the people are the best guardian and guarantor of the Constitution.

This desire to impose such structure means having something similar to a "Commission for Guarding the Constitution," as the one in Iran, or similar to Turkey’s secular system, which makes the Army above the Constitution,the situation which the Turkish people have been struggling for 40 years to change and to restore true democracy. In fact, the Turkish people have approached reaching a decisive breakthrough while heading for this purpose after the bitter experiences of the military coups that have led at one point to the execution of a Prime Minister who was charged with restoring the call to prayer from Turkish to Arabic and the reopening of the Islamic schools of the Imams.


It is apparent that there are some people in Egypt seeking to abolish all democratic principles and the value ??of freedom, even if this leads to a continued period of anxiety and turmoil, and if it sacrifices the stability of the country and urge for construction. Those people serving their own narrow-sighted interests are the ones whom the poet Ahmed Shawki described as “the people whom whenever they found rationality and wisdom taming differences, they made all their effort to serve their own interests and further fuel the fires”.

 
We warn against responding to these advocates for the supra-constitutional principles or accepting to carry on with their demands. We call for invoking the will of the people and respecting it for the sake of the higher interest of the nation and to avoid the negative repercussions.

We pray that Allah keeps Egypt from mutiny and temptation, and to save it from conflict and differences. We pray that Allah helps reconciling and uniting the people of Egypt towards the true path. We pray to Allah to help us all to uplift our beloved Egypt and to maintain and keep the revolution of the people; and to achieve its goals, on top of which restoring freedom to the people of Egypt and their right to choose and make their own decisions.

 

The Muslim Brotherhood
Cairo: August 13, 2011