Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 13, Week 2, Day 1.

More than a year after his Muslim Brotherhood supporters helped steal the election and four days after millions if not tens of millions took to the streets Egypt's Mohamed Morsi has still not done the decent thing and handed Egypt back to its citizens.

The main delay at this point seems to be that the Egyptian military are still hesitant to do their duty to the nation and forcibly remove Morsi from power. It is easy to see why they are nervous though. After all Saudi Arabia, the UK, the US and all the other nations who want to see Egypt fail have thrown their support behind Morsi. Morsi's own supporters have taken to the streets with guns, knives and iron bars and are threatening civil war if they do not get their way. They have even gone so far as to attack themselves outside the Cairo university in an attempt to smear the opposition and raise tensions. The main reason that the military are dragging their feet though is that they don't want the job of running the country so are worried about what happens after Morsi steps down.

Here I hope I can be of some help. What I think needs to happen is that for a short period the military will have to take over the day to day running of the nation. However their powers will be limited to only what is strictly necessary such as making sure that public employees get paid, Egypt adheres to it's international obligations such as the complex issue of the Sinai border with Israel and Egypt doesn't get invaded by a foreign power. Although the military will have full power their duties will be overseen by a civilian, unelected, interim President. This person needs to be highly intelligent, highly capable and must represent the views of all Egyptians. Therefore he cannot be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. While I've not spoken to him myself Mohamed El-Baradei's name has frequently been mentioned as a more then qualified candidate.

While Egypt's military and interim President are trying to keep the country running the Constitution adopted in December 2012 must be scrapped because while there are many good elements the majority of it is useless. In no more than three months after Morsi's departure Egypt must hold a special election to chose a body to write a new interim constitution. This document will be very basic covering only the structure of Egypt's new political system and election rules. The current bicameral system of the Peoples Assembly and the Shura Council is actually very good. It's just that the Muslim Brotherhood have packed both bodies with it's members meaning that they are not independent and are therefore not doint their job. The interim constitution will also have to make very basic provisions to allow the military/police to maintain order.

As this constitution is only a interim document in place until new elections can be held and a full Parliament can be elected it will not be put to public referendum and instead will be signed off by the interim President, the military and the Supreme Court. Most importantly though rather than being open to everybody the election for the constitutional panel will be contested by just five parties designated by the military. This unusual step is necessary because after years of military dictatorship Egyptians simply don't have the experience of democracy needed to make it work so need time to practice. This is what caused the problem at the first attempt at post-revolution democracy where the majority of Egyptians voted for secular parties but because there were so many of them the secular vote was split and the minority who supported the Muslim Brotherhood ended up taken power. Therefore limiting the number of parties contesting the election for the constitutional panel will help ensure that panel accurately represents the views of all sections of Egyptian society and through that help speed up the process.

Before any of that can happen though Morsi must step down.

17:35 on 3/7/13.