Local media reported that the leadership of the parliament received a formal order to dissolve the parliament and that lawmakers were being blocked from entering the building. Deputy parliamentary speaker Ashraf Thabet had said a day earlier that parliament would try to convene on Tuesday…

There were numerous signs that the military was seeking to expand its power and had made prior preparations for the current crisis. “What we’ve been seeing in recent weeks and days is a fresh self-confidence and perhaps hubris by the military,” said Elijah Zarwan, a Cairo-based analyst for the European Council of Foreign Relations. “The endgame is the maintenance of as much of the status quo as possible.”

Following what it described as an emergency Friday meeting, the SCAF assumed full legislative power and control over the budget until a new parliament is formed. Local media reported it would soon issue a new constitutional declaration regarding the composition of an assembly to write up a new constitution and define the powers of the new president, who will be sworn in by the country’s Supreme Constitutional Court in the absence of a legislature.