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First Look at Egypt's Constitutional Declaration

Egypt's constitutional declaration sets the ground rules for the post-Morsi transition.
The Egyptian flag is seen at the Supreme Constitutional Court during the swearing in ceremony of the head of the court Adli Mansour as the nation's interim president in Cairo July 4, 2013. Egypt's prosecutor ordered the arrest of the Muslim Brotherhood's leader on Thursday, widening a crackdown against the Islamist movement after the army ousted the country's first democratically elected president Mursi. But Adli Mansour used his inauguration to hold out an olive branch to the Brotherhood. REUTERS/ Amr Abda

While Mohammed  Morsi might be out of power, one significant feature from his year in office isn’t, namely the potential for receiving major government announcements while Egyptians are actually supposed to be sleeping. Almost exactly at midnight, Egypt’s anticipated new constitutional declaration has finally come out into the light, setting the ground rules for the political transition following Morsi’s ouster.

The short transitional charter of 33 articles, largely barebones and half the size of its 2011 predecessor, has a lot of remarkable features and implications, and says a lot about where Egypt is right now politically.

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