Egypt’s Parliament Dissolved: Three Things to Know

Following the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court’s decision to dissolve parliament just before the second round of Egypt’s presidential elections June 16 and 17, CFR’s Steven A. Cook highlights three developments to watch:

Who will be elected president? Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq, former prime minister under ousted president Hosni Mubarak, are set to compete in a runoff presidential election. "It seems that the Supreme Constitutional Court’s decision, although based in law, was a political decision, and an effort to throw the election in favor of Ahmed Shafiq," Cook argues.

What is the state of Egypt’s revolution? "The revolution now finds itself on the defensive," Cook says. "What the Supreme Constitutional Court did contradicts what many of those revolutionaries and activists who instigated the uprising had hoped for."

What role will the armed forces play in Egypt’s politics? The court’s actions may have helped the country’s armed forces "seal its role in the future of Egypt as the locus of power, authority, and legitimacy in the system, without having to run the country on a day-to-day basis."