Egyptian military dissolves Parliament and suspends Constitution

CAIRO. The military junta that governs Egypt announced yesterday that the transition period towards civil power will last for six months. The junta agreed to suspend the Constitution, dissolved the Parliament and assumed legislative powers.

The announcements are contained in a message that was released by the Supreme High Council of the Armed Forces, the third message since the resignation of Hosni Mubarak last Friday and the fifth since the military announced that they were following the country's political situation closely as a result of the uprising that began on 25 January.

The communiqué, disseminated by the public television stations, is signed by the chief of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and the Minister of Defense, General Husein Tantaui, who was in this post during the last Mubarak administrations and continues in the same post now.

The message is being heard while the opposition and the groups that promoted the uprising against Mubarak called for dated for the transition period which opened up after his resignation and who called for an end to the Emergency Law in force since 1981.

"The Council is aware that the real challenge that faces Egypt is to achieve development through an environment of freedom and constitutional reforms in order to fulfill the legitimate demands", said the military communiqué.

Starting from this principle, the military junta annulled two of the institutional pillars inherited from the Mubarak regime, the Parliament and the Constitution, and gave itself legislative powers.