New broom in action

摘要

Egypt's newly elected president, Muhammad Morsi, came to office with a reputation as a plodding technocrat. He has proved anything but. In a brief televised announcement on August 12th by his spokesman, Mr Morsi purged the upper ranks of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (scaf). That collection of senior generals, having controlled the country for decades, had imposed itself as a de facto fourth branch of government and was recently working hard to limit the president's power. Gone is the long-serving defence minister, Field-Marshal Muhammad Tantawi, and his deputy and heir-apparent, General Sami Enan, as well as the heads of all the main service branches. Many of them received golden-parachute reassignments. Mr Tantawi and Mr Enan were given shiny medals and new appointments as "presidential advisers". When Mr Morsi sacked his intelligence chief and several other high-level security officials on August 8th, after militants had killed 16 Egyptian soldiers in Sinai, it was seen as an assertive step by a leader seeking to make his mark. It turns out he was just warming up.