Morsi ‘very optimistic’ over deal to resolve Egypt crisis

Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi on Monday began negotiations with the country’s senior judges in a bid to defuse the stand-off, publicly expressing his confidence that further violent unrest could be averted.
“President Morsi is very optimistic that Egyptians will overcome this challenge as they have overcome other challenges,” the presidential spokesman Yasser Ali told reporters. Before the president’s keenly-awaited meeting with the judges, the judiciary minister, Ahmed Mekki – who has been acting as a mediator between the president and the judiciary – told reporters that a resolution to the crisis was “imminent”. He did not explain the basis of his prediction. Another major demonstration against Morsi is scheduled for Tuesday however, and on Monday night opposition politician Hamdeen Sabahy said that protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square would continue until the president gave up his new powers.
“Our decision is to continue in the square, we will not leave before this declaration is brought down,” he said, adding that Tahrir Square would be a model of an “Egypt that will not accept a new dictator because it brought down the old one.” Mourners took to the streets in Cairo and the northern city of Dumanhoor on Monday for the funerals of protesters killed in the angry backlash against Morsi’s power grab. Police allowed thousands of mourners to pass through Tahrir Square – scene of the mass protests that unseated former president Hosni Mubarak last year – for the funeral of a demonstrator killed in confrontations with security forces. The event went ahead peacefully thanks to an informal truce between police and hundreds of anti-Morsi protesters staging a sit-in in the square.
Similar scenes unfolded in Dumanhoor on the Nile Delta, where a teenage demonstrator killed in clashes at the headquarters of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood was buried. Morsi’s office said in a statement that he had ordered the country’s head prosecutor to investigate the deaths. The Egyptian health ministry said yesterday [Monday] that 444 people had been injured since a wave of demonstrations against his presidential edict putting all his decisions beyond legal challenge swept the country since last Friday.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian news agency MENA reported that the administrative court would meet next Wednesday [December 4] to examine a case demanding the cancellation of President Morsi’s decree. Abdel Meguid al-Moqannen, deputy chief of the State Council, said the hearing was in response to more than a dozen lawsuits filed against the edict, which liberal and secular opponents have denounced as a blatant power grab. Ayman al-Sayyad, a member of Morsi’s 17-member advisory council, said, without elaborating, that the president was preparing to take a decision that would spare the nation “a possible sea of blood”. In addition to his presidential powers, Morsi has unilaterally cancelled legal challenges to the body charged with drawing up a new constitution and to the upper house of parliament. Both are dominated by his Muslim Brotherhood supporters. With the lower house of parliament in abeyance until the new constitution is established, that would effectively make Morsi more powerful than Mr Mubarak before he was toppled. Morsi, an Islamist, has denied that he intends to turn himself into a dictator, claiming instead that his enhanced powers are an essential temporary measure needed to protect Egypt’s transition to democracy. In a statement on Sunday, he promised to engage all political factions in “inclusive democratic dialogue”. However, opposition activists have declined any such dialogue until the decree is rescinded.