The presumed next President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Photo: wiki commons.

NY Times – Egyptian news organizations declared Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood the winner of the country’s first competitive presidential race on Monday just hours after the ruling military council issued an interim constitution granting itself broad power over the future government, all but eliminating the president’s authority in an apparent effort to guard against just such a victory.

The military’s new charter is the latest in a series of swift steps that the generals have taken to tighten their grasp on power just at the moment when they had promised to hand over to elected civilians the authority that they assumed on the ouster of Hosni Mubarak last year. Their charter grants them the power to control the prime minister, lawmaking, the national budget, and declarations of war, without any supervision or oversight.

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