- Article 30: In situation that parliament is dissolved the president will be sworn into office in front of High Constitutional Court's General Assembly.

- Article 53: The incumbent SCAF members are responsible for deciding on all issues related to the armed forces including appointing its leaders and extending the terms in office of the aforesaid leaders. The current head of the SCAF is to act as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and Minister of Defense until a new constitution is drafted.

- Article 53/1: The president can only declare war after the approval of the SCAF.

- Article 53/2: If the country faces internal unrest, which requires the intervention of the armed forces, the president can issue a decision to commission the armed forces – with the approval of the SCAF - to maintain security and defend public properties. Current Egyptian law stipulates the powers of the armed forces and its authorities in cases where the military can use force, arrest or detain.

- Article 56 B: The SCAF will assume the authorities set out in sub-article 1 of Article 56 as written in the March 30, 2011 Constitutional Declaration until a new parliament is elected.

- Article 60 B: If the constituent assembly encounters an obstacle that would prevent it from completing its work, the SCAF within a week will form a new constituent assembly - to author a new constitution within three months from the day of the new assembly's formation. The newly drafted constitution will be put forward after 15 days of the day it is completed for approval by the people through a national referendum. The parliamentary elections will take place one month from the day the new constitution is approved by the national referendum.

- Article 60 B1: If the President, the head of SCAF, the Prime Minister, the Supreme Council of the Judiciary or a fifth of the constituent assembly find that the new constitution contains an article or more which conflict with the revolution's goals and its main principles or which conflict with any principal agreed upon in all of Egypt's former constitutions, any of the aforementioned bodies may demand that the constituent assembly revises this specific article within 15 days. Should the constituent assembly object to revising the contentious article, the article will be referred to the High Constitutional Court (HCC), which will then be obliged to give its verdict within seven days. The HCC's decision is final and will be published in the official gazette within three days from the date of issuance.

- Article 38: As of March 30, 2011 Constitutional Declaration will be replaced with: "The parliamentary elections will be conducted in accordance to the law."

Simply stated, the SCAF is here to stay. Talks of handing power to a newly elected president on July 1st are more or less a farce. The new president will have little say in what he does and must get permission from the SCAF to do pretty much everything. Some are calling this the start of a military dictatorship when Egypt was always been one to begin with. Frankly, I see it being very similar to the setup of the Iranian regime, whereas with the SCAF taking the place of the Supreme Leader and the president merely being a figurehead. This news is coherent with other recent developments coming out of Egypt this past week.

On the June 14th, Egypt’s High Constitutional Court (HCC) announced the parliamentary election law was unconstitutional, causing for the lower house of parliament, the People’s Assembly, to be dissolved. It also determined that the Political Disenfranchisement Law, which emphasized on figures like Mubarak era Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq ability to continue running in the second round of presidential elections, was declared unconstitutional as well. It was also said that the upper house of parliament, the Shura Council, would likely be dissolved by the next sitting.

The following Day, the SCAF declared it would have its own criteria for those who would be drafting Egypt’s constitution. As a result of the court decision, SCAF now has the ability to determine who could write Egypt’s constitution and many other things, hence the newly released addendum.

What is frustrating is if the parliament is unconstitutional, why was this not considered before? 30 million people participated in the elections of the now dominated Islamist parliament; many are seeing it as a last ditch to retain power in the hands of the SCAF. Many including myself were not for parliamentary elections until the constitution was drafted; yet they still happened. The dissolving of parliament has caused outrage amongst members of the Muslim Brotherhood who holds 235 seats in the People’s Assembly. This is just on their part, although at the end of the day they are seeking their own interests.

From what has been garnered, it seems the SCAF assumed both executive and legislative powers with the judiciary power working hand in hand. Incredibly, right before Egypt’s new president is elected, before anyone could step in to stop it. The SCAF seemed to have had this in mind all along. Nevertheless, the Egyptian people will not tolerate being played with. With so many developments, it seems unlikely they would stay home and watch things unfold; this time around the revolution may actually happen. As I write this article, it seems the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Mohamed Morsi is the winner. That won’t matter anymore – the battle may be lost but the war has just begun.

*Photo Credit: Hossam el-Hamalawy