Push back.

I'm clueless and I have to go to a meeting, so no time to google, right now.

The military's saying it's the sole source of law, both constitutional and otherwise. They shut down the parliament last month as a result of a screwy Supreme Court ruling.

The newly elected president disagrees, is saying that parliament is the sole source of both, and has reconvened it with an eye to enforcing that stance.

Military (and the courts) disbands the parliament alleging fraud.

Morsi decides, after careful consideration, that the parliament should be reinstated because there was no fraud.

Edit: and he seems to be getting some moral support from the administration.

Deputy Secretary of State William Burns meets Morsy in the morning, Morsi summons back disassembled parliament midday Brilliant
(via Twitter)

I would have assumed that the military disbanding parliament was pushed by western forces since we can't have islamists drafting Egypt's new constitution. If instead, the military was acting on its own, this would make some sense here.

Or it could be that Morsi rebuffed Burns.

It's hard to grock what's going on here. If there is a split away element within the Egyptian military I suppose we'll hear of it soon enough.

So far I like what he's doing.

This is how I understand it, I could be wrong.
The Court ruled that a lot of the seats had to be re-contested because of some kind of unfairness or fraud. If so, there was a danger that the MB would loose seats to other parties because people would want to balance the parliament better. Maybe more liberal reps would be elected.

So he's basically allowing election fraud in order to retain his MB majority in parliament.

Then again who can really trust the military to fairly carry out new elections, or if they even ever would? So it may be the best of two evils if Mursi can successfully stand up to the brutes who rule the armed forces.

had really undermined that parliament's credibility - especially with its importance in drawing up the constitution.

Now Mursi wants THAT parliament reinstated. I'm not so sure this is a great thing. I'd also say Mursi is walking a fine line in pissing off the military (who aren't coup-averse obviously).

I can't believe we're taking what the Egyptian military has to say at face value.

Which leads to some very sticky questions: didn't the military carry out the last parliamentary elections and the recent presidential one? So even if they could be trusted, look at what happened. And now that people saw in the presidential election that they were presented with a choice of the military-backed candidate or the MB candidate, is it fair to get a redo on the parliament now? Or is the fraud so pervasive that it shouldn't stand?

Democracy: no fun sometimes, but the best way out of all of them.

The pre-vote tally that the MB came up with was within a percentage point of the official numbers.

Why, yes, they were.

http://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/peace_publications/election_reports/Egypt-Peoples-Assembly-Elections.pdf (pdf)

While there were shortcomings in the legal framework, campaign violations, and weaknesses in the administration of the elections, the results appear to be a broadly accurate expression of the will of the voters.

Which he should rightly do as they're the only ones alleging fraud.

It's actually quite amusing.

Before the Egyptian revolution the Egyptian military was seen as a truly questionable apparatus, paid billions from the west.

After the fall of Mubarak when the Egyptian military stood its ground (likely because the west told it to), it was in decent standing.

After the liberals lost in the elections? The entire revolution is a farce and the Egyptian military is now trustworthy.

The reason Mubarak's party lost was because they banned the MB. It is no surprise that after the return of full elections the MB wins.

Morsi is doing the correct thing here, by respecting democratic institutions as opposed to doing what the western backed military wants.

Yes, it sucks, the liberals lost in Egypt, and they were largely responsible for the revolution to begin with. But so what? They will come back one day. It's going to be a rough ride but supporting democracy is far more important than supporting just the guys you like.

If they attempt that there will be another "second uprising" to refute such nonsense.

The MB and islamists will take a more centrist position and eventually will be marginalized from existence. They will be a short term blip on the history of Egyptian politics.

The best explanation as to why the Parliament was disbanded seems to be here:

http://www.rt.com/news/egypt-election-shafiq-can-run-810/

(At the time, everybody focused on the what and whom, not the why.)

If RT is correct, then in an effort to shut out "independent" Mubarak-affiliated candidates they let parties have a shot at "independent" seats and edged out truly independent candidates. (Once again, that "no true independent candidate would have supported Mubarak" reasoning must be true, leading us to say that "all true independent candidates would support dissident, esp. Islamist, parties" is also valid reasoning. Argh.)

is that under Mubarak the Bro couldn't stand as a party so they stood as independents. There's no reason to suppose that each of those independents wouldn't be / have been re-elected anyway.

Now if he can just disband the armed forces. They're trying to make things into a Burmese style military junta. I say throw the whole lot out. They used to have public support but they no longer enjoy that luxury.

Even though Morsy and I differ politically, I believe his efforts to reinstate the democratic process are commendable.

I say throw the whole lot out, as well.

Source: BBC