Morsi, as a result of his recent constitutional declaration, has been accused of attempting to acquire dictatorial powers.  The Roman Republic, however, instituted dictatorship as a regular constitutional tool to deal with war time emergency.  Does the Roman Republic’s institutionalization of the dictatorship provide any lessons for the current Egyptian transition?

When the Freedom and Justice Party nominated Muhammad Morsi for the Egyptian presidency, many Egyptian pundits dismissed him with the contemptuous title, “istibn,” or “the spare tire.”

Despite all the turmoil in Egypt, elites in Egypt can apparently unite in mocking the appearance of Muhammad Mursi’s wife, who wears what is know in Egypt as a khimar. 

As Mahmoud Salem observed in a prescient piece published by The Daily Beast on May 23, 2012, he believed that candidates who were perceived as tacking to the center, such as `Amr Musa, Egyptia’s former foreign minister and head of the League of Arab States, and `Abd al-Mun`im Abu al-Futuh, the breakaway candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood, were not likely to do well in the context of Egypt’s fractured electorate.