I am just not sure what the MB could have done to be provided with a bigger popular mandate. They certainly had one.
Morsi could have not moulded the constitutional decree and referendum to rubber stamp, could have not asserted that if the constitution is not passed, the President would continue to with supreme executive power.
The Brotherhood has no legitimacy or mandate in power with its consitution, and nor does the army for its coup.
The suggestion from you is that the Brotherhood does, but the army doesn't.
I think this is wholly wrong and this kind of tale will help the Brotherhood carve itself into a further power bid in the future. The Brotherhood analysis is all on the lines of deranged hoodlums, secularists, Copts, foreign powers and foreign-trained officers behind an illegitimate cancellation of a heroic Presidency fighting for the downtrodded Sunni masses. We should pick apart its fantasies on both counts.
Additionally, Egyptian politics over the last year has been nothing but MB and the military posturing against each other. We'll see if large swathes of the Egyptian lower classes become less militant / radicalised as a result of all of this.
It's
not simply been posturing
against - some of the most significant elements of the constitution were the efforts to preserve power and privileges for the armed forces.
Because the armed forces and the whole top layers of society still feel foreboding from the mood from below - an unpredictable popular feeling that the revolution and hundreds of martyrs etc has been in vain, they become more likely to intervene as protests and forebodings of future protests against the Brotherhood gathered pace.
Mursi's 22 November decree gave himself any powers to take any decisions for the purpose of national unity and stability, and declared that no judges could review such decisions. In this climate came the race for the new constitution to split power equally between Brotherhood and military. It did not struggle against the military.
The Brotherhood first put in articles allowing military prosecutors to try civilians for crimes against the Armed Forces. It then - against the opposition of other parties - rammed through parliamentary secrecy for the military budget so that it would not be listed in full in its expenditure, so that even questions in parliament let alone select committees about military expenditure cannot be put.
It also proposed the new national defence council system, headed by President a minister or two with the military commanders to meet monthly to discuss national security issues, military budgets and veto future laws related to the military, and with an article allowing for unspecified extra powers to be granted by the President to this national defence council away from the parliament.
It then rammed through articles maintaining shariah justice as the 'main source of legislation' (defined as [Sunni Muslim] jurisprudence from El Azhar university) and with bits stating Christianity and Judaism will be the “main source of legislation” for Egyptian Christians and Jews.
Some parliamentarians resigned at all these articles being rammed through without discussion on state media or in parliament in an increasingly threatening environment with police raids on minor opposition parties accused of fomenting the protests against the decree.
What did the Brotherhood do? It just replaced them with yesmen from the Brotherhood party list, as the constitutional decrees allowed no new elections. So it all went through through the judicature and came out in the form of a referendum, which was entirely a democratic facade, mostly boycotted but imposed with state TV and dire warnings of chaos if it was rejected, the Brotherhood channels warning of foreign (ie Coptic) agents stirring up trouble leading to Brotherhood attacks on Copts.
An AP
report - soft on the Brotherhood not explaining all the details - on the Constitution rammed through parliament:
The Islamist-dominated assembly that has been working on the constitution for months raced to pass it, voting article by article on the draft's more than 230 articles for more than 16 hours. The lack of inclusion was on display in the nationally televised gathering: Of the 85 members in attendance, there was not a single Christian and only four women, all Islamists. Many of the men wore beards, the hallmark of Muslim conservatives.
During Thursday's session, assembly head Hossam al-Ghiryani doggedly pushed the members to finish. When one article received 16 objections, he pointed out that would require postponing the vote 48 hours under the body's rules. "Now I'm taking the vote again," he said, and all but four members dropped their objections. In the session's final hours, several new articles were hastily written up and added to resolve lingering issues.
Over the past week, about 30 members have pulled out of the assembly, with mainly Islamists brought in to replace some. As a result, every article passed overwhelmingly.
...
One article that passed underlined that the state will protect "the true nature of the Egyptian family ... and promote its morals and values," phrasing that suggests the state could prevent anything deemed to undermine the family.
The draft says citizens are equal under the law but an article specifically establishing women's equality was dropped because of disputes over the phrasing.
As in past constitutions, the new draft said the "principles of Islamic law" will be the basis of law.
Previously, the term "principles" allowed wide leeway in interpreting Shariah. But in the draft, a separate new article is added that seeks to define "principles" by pointing to particular theological doctrines and their rules. That could give Islamists the tool for insisting on stricter implementation of rulings of Shariah.
Another new article states that Egypt's most respected Islamic institution, Al-Azhar, must be consulted on any matters related to Shariah, a measure critics fear will lead to oversight of legislation by clerics.
The draft also includes bans on "insulting or defaming all prophets and messengers" or even "insulting humans" — broad language that analysts warned could be used to crack down on many forms of speech.
It also preserves much of military's immunity from parliamentary scrutiny, putting its budget in the hands of the National Defense Council, which includes the president, the heads of the two houses of parliament and top generals.
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So in all the army was happy with the constitution and the Brotherhood, but the gathering storm of Tamarrod and intensified street protest and possibly direct action did unsettle them.
I am sure you will be able to explain why the military arrested several workers in media organisations and MB commissars.
Because the military has its own agenda of imposing some measure of restriction against sources that might criticise the military. It obviously doesn't do it by shutting off the liberal channels first,
The Brotherhood commissars - who knows - might be charged for the various outbreaks of Brotherhood involved violence. Note that they're not releasing the foreign NGO workers that the Brotherhood jailed. Hypocrites that they are.
