CAIRO (Reuters) – Islamist President-elect Mohamed Mursi began talks yesterday with groups nervous about where he will take Egypt after the generals who have ruled since Hosni Mubarak’s fall make way for the republic’s first civilian leader.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Mursi to bring diverse groups into his government, mentioning Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority, secular-minded Egyptians and young people.
The US State Department played down reports that Clinton might visit Cairo this weekend, saying that she was unlikely to visit Egypt during her current trip to Europe, which is due to end on Saturday in Geneva.
Speaking at a news conference in Helsinki, Clinton stressed the importance of developing democratic institutions, including countervailing forces such as an independent judiciary and a free press.
“We hope that full democracy is understood to be more than an election,” she said. “One election does not a democracy make.
“That’s just the beginning of the hard work and the hard work requires pluralism, respecting the rights of minorities, independent judiciary (and) independent media…” Clinton said.
Clinton promised support for a democratic transition in Egypt, a firm US ally and a recipient of billions of dollars in US aid since it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
“We’ve heard some very positive statements thus far including about respecting international obligations, which would in our view cover the peace treaty with Israel, but we have to wait and judge by what is actually done,” she said.
Mursi, 60, a US-trained engineer and Muslim Brotherhood insider, is expect to take his oath on Saturday, but it is uncertain where he will do so.
Parliament is the normal venue, but the constitutional court dissolved the Islamist-led lower house this month in a clear attempt to roll back the Brotherhood’s electoral successes since Mubarak’s overthrow in a burst of popular anger 16 months ago.
According to a government source quoted by state-run al-Ahram newspaper, the same court will swear in Mursi, but this may be unpalatable to the man who defeated a former pro-Mubarak air force chief in a run-off for the presidency this month.
The office of Egypt’s president-elect Mursi said details on the swearing in ceremony would be released today.
Mursi’s own authority has already been circumscribed by the military, which has long viewed the Brotherhood as a peril to Egypt’s secular establishment and must now cohabit with a man it fears will seek to erode its entrenched power and privilege.
