Egypt has appointed what the Wall Street Journal describes as a “mostly secular group” to draft the country’s next constitution. The group’s composition is being read as a contrast the controversial drafting of an Islamist constitution during the administration of Egypt’s former president Mohammed Morsi, during which women and religious minorities were largely locked out. A very pointed contrast:

The constitutional committee, which will convene for the first time next Sunday, included only two Islamists. Bassam El-Zarqa, the deputy head of the hardline Salafi Nour Party, appeared to be the only delegate with strong Islamist credentials. The only representative with any association to the once-ruling Muslim Brotherhood, Kamal El-Helbawy, has been a stalwart critic of the organization since he left it during the early 1990s.

The committee also includes at least four representatives from the country’s Christian minority, which makes up about 10% of Egypt’s population, but only four women—a diversity ratio that is hardly much better than the controversial constituent committee that Mr. Morsi assembled nearly a year ago. The Islamists’ exclusion was hardly a surprise—the once-powerful Muslim Brotherhood has refused to deal with the interim government that was installed by the military in the wake of the July 3 coup.

The violent protests that immediately followed the army’s early July moves against Morsi have largely dampened, after the Muslim Brotherhood committed to staging a “million-man march” a few weeks ago. Those protests were met by pro-army demonstrations, with analysts worried about the potential for spiraling violence.

[Photo: El Mosquito Querétaro / Flickr]