CAIRO — A defiant Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and allied lawmakers said they would reopen the Islamist-dominated Parliament at noon Tuesday, setting up a direct confrontation with military leaders who had disbanded the body just a month ago.
The move heightens tensions between the week-old Muslim Brotherhood government and military and judicial vestiges of the former Mubarak regime.
After Morsi’s decree Sunday ordering parliament reinstated, the military council went into closed emergency session.
On Monday, the military delivered a thinly veiled warning to Morsi, saying it expects all state institutions to respect the constitution.
The Supreme Constitutional Court also released a statement Monday warning that its ruling last month against the legislature was “final and binding,” according to state television reports.
A majority of the legislators are members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, to which Morsi belongs, and other Islamist groups.
Morsi’s decree also called for parliamentary elections to be held within 60 days of the approval of a new constitution, which is expected this year.
The decree is considered pivotal by many observers, who have been waiting to see how the fledgling government would respond to the military council’s grab of executive powers on the eve of the presidential election.
Just a week after being sworn in, Morsi answered with a direct challenge to the generals, signaling that the unfolding power struggle between the armed forces and the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood would not be a one-sided fight.
“No one is going to dismiss Morsi as a figurehead now,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. “They had to do something to fight back and gain the momentum. Assuming it wasn’t pre-negotiated [with the military], and it doesn’t look like it was, it’s certainly an aggressive first move.”
The decree further confuses Egypt’s tumultuous transition from dictatorship to democracy one week before a planned visit to Cairo by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Morsi’s gambit could mark the start of a prolonged game of brinkmanship between an entrenched military and a government with popular support.
Few can predict where the standoff will head next. Given the profound disarray of Egypt’s governing institutions, few can even say who had the authority to arbitrate.
