The National Front for the Protection of the Revolution praise President Morsi's moves that wrested executive back powers away from the military, and urge him to move swiftly to fulfill promises The National Front for the Protection of the Revolution praises President Mohamed Morsi'smove to wrest some power away from key figures in the military and place it into civilian hands as one step towards fulfilling his promises. However, they urge he quickly meet other demands. On Sunday Morsi cancelled the military's addendum to the Constitutional Declaration, which highly weakened the executive branch in favour of the military. Morsi also retired and replaced the head of Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), Hussein Tantawi, and chief-of-staff Sami Anan. The National Front had conditioned their support for the Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate (Morsi) in extremely tight runoffs against military-man Shafiq just days before the winner was announced. Now that Morsi has full authorities, the front stressed that the president should free all political prisoners facing military trials; go through with the national unity project, which includes establishing a politically- and socially-inclusive consultative presidential team; restructure the Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting Egypt's new constitution so that it fulfils the aspiration of the January 25 revolution; ensure the constitution is drafted and hold new parliamentary elections as soon as possible. The front also recommended the president limit his use of the legislative authority he gave himself in the recent constitutional changes to urgent matters. Also pressing is that the president take steps towards bettering social justice and cleansing state institutions of ex-regime members, including the judiciary and police. The new president had earlier agreed to six demands presented by the front including to: - Abide by the principle of national cooperation and the uniting national project expressing the revolution's demands and representing all of society, including women, Copts and youths. - Form a cabinet and a presidential team that is representative of all the political factions and one that is headed by an independent national figure. - Form a crisis-management group composed of several National Front members to assist the president during the transition process until a complete handover of power is accomplished. - Flatly refuse the addendum to the Constitutional Declaration reducing the presidential authorities as well as the decision of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to dissolve parliament. - Seek a more balanced and representative Constitutional Declaration that would help guarantee the drafting of a permanent constitution for all Egyptians. - Abide by complete transparency with the people regarding any changes and developments. The National Front is made up of prominent writer Alaa Al-Aswany; columnist Wael Qandeel; nationalist opposition figure Hamdi Qandeel; media figure Sekina Fouad; academic and political figure Heba Raouf; activist Wael Khalil; activist Wael Ghoneim; founder of the National Association for Change (NAC) Abdel-Gelil Mostafa; independent activist Ahmed Imam; political thinker Hassan Nafaa; the April 6 Youth Movement; the Egyptian Current Party as well as Brotherhood leading member Mohamed El-Beltagi, among others. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/50303.aspx
