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The SCAF generals and their tame high court dissolved parliament before the recent election. Under civil conditions that would be where Morsi would be sworn in as president. Instead the official swearing-in ceremony will be before that high court. Mohamed Morsi made it clear he doesn’t recognize either the shutdown of Parliament or the quasi-private ceremony.
Mohamed Morsi, the Egyptian president-elect, took a symbolic oath of office during a rousing speech in Cairo, promising dignity and social justice to a crowd of tens of thousands gathered in Tahrir Square.
Morsi opened his speech by addressing himself to “the Muslims and Christians of Egypt,” and promised to preserve a civil state.
“We will complete the journey in a civil state, a nationalist state, a constitutional state, a modern state,” he told the crowd, to applause and cheers.
Morsi, a former Muslim Brotherhood official, promised to end torture and discrimination, and to deliver social justice for millions of Egyptians.
He insisted that “no institution will be above the people,” critiquing an army which has sought to shield itself from parliamentary oversight. “You are the source of authority,” he told the crowd…
He will take office amidst a great deal of political uncertainty. He swore to uphold the constitution, but Egypt still does not have a permanent constitution, only a series of “constitutional declarations” issued by the ruling generals.
He took his own ceremony to the people in Tahrir Square where so much of Egypt’s uprising against Hosni Mubarak was centered. And the people of Egypt responded in the tens of thousands to cheer the peoples’ version of the swearing-in of their new president.
