Thursday, Dec 06, 2012


 
   By Matt Bradley

CAIRO--Tensions simmered as thousands of Islamist activists quietly left their roadside camp in front of Egypt's presidential palace on Thursday afternoon, a day after a bruising street battle that pitted them against secular activists left six dead and hundreds injured.

Despite the appearance of calm, neither side of the continuing feud over President Mohammed Morsi's recent decree granting himself nearly unrestricted powers appeared willing to yield ground. The impasse threatened to erupt into fresh violence on Friday, when the embattled leader's opponents declared they will once again descend to the streets in protest.

Mr. Morsi huddled with senior advisers, ministers and security officials, including his defense minister, to discuss a solution to what has become the most divisive challenge to Egypt's government since the revolution nearly two years ago.

Egypt's state television reported Thursday morning that the president was preparing to address the nation later in the day, but by 10 p.m., the president had yet to appear.

More chinks appeared in Mr. Morsi's armor when two government officials left his political camp on Thursday morning. Essam El-Amir, the head of Egypt's state-run television station, resigned in protest on Thursday.

Rafiq Habib, a token Christian deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, also announced his withdrawal from political life.

The Republican Guard, an elite military unit charged with protecting the president, deployed tanks and armored cars in front of the presidential palace on Thursday morning to keep order. Guard troops gave the remaining Islamist protesters a 3 p.m. ultimatum to leave the palace's premises.

Perhaps humbled by their disastrous 18-month stint as Egypt's interim leaders, the once all-powerful military has kept a curiously low profile throughout the three-week long leadership crisis.

"The Egyptian military has come out of the transition period very exhausted by its clear involvement in politics and cannot afford to do this again," said Rabab Al Mahdi, a left-leaning activist and political science professor at the American University in Cairo.

The challenge ahead for Mr. Morsi and his mostly Islamist supporters will be to brace against a growing tide of criticism and government defections until a national referendum on a proposed constitutional draft scheduled for Dec. 15.

Mr. Morsi outraged his opponents and many of his supporters when he expanded his own powers late last month at the expense of the country's judges.

The president and the powerful Muslim Brotherhood organization that supports him say the judiciary is stocked with former regime loyalists intent on overthrowing his new Islamist government.

But Mr. Morsi's opponents, among them the youthful revolutionaries who spearheaded Mr. Mubarak's downfall nearly two years ago, said the president's decree smacked of an Islamist putsch.

Secular activists have demanded that Mr. Morsi withdraw his divisive decree and allow more room for non-Islamist voices in the constitutional drafting process.

Thursday's lull offered both sides a fresh opportunity to exchange blame for last night's violence. The Brotherhood claimed that all of the six deaths came from among the ranks of Mr. Morsi's supporters, repeating the refrain that the opposing protesters are thugs paid by former regime officials.

For their part, secular-leaning leaders have accused the Brotherhood of inciting Thursday night's fighting by calling on their numbers to "defend the legitimacy" of the presidency against Mr. Morsi's opponents who were already camped out in front of the palace

In its statement calling for more protests against Mr. Morsi on Friday, a coalition of liberal groups calling itself the "National Salvation Front" blamed Brotherhood "militias" for Thursday's violence.

"Morsi tried to terrorize and frighten revolutionary forces to accept his stubbornness," the statement read. "He forgot that he is where he is because of the martyrs' blood that overthrew the old regime, so he decided to spill more Egyptian blood and push them to a civil fight in the streets."

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

06-12-12 2034GMT