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Egyptians Vote on New Constitution in Key Referendum Egyptians Vote on New Constitution in Referendum
(about 7 hours later)
CAIRO — Egyptians began voting on Tuesday in a two-day referendum on a revised constitution which the country’s top military officer has cast as a potential precursor to a bid for the presidency. CAIRO — Egyptians trundled to the polls on Tuesday for the third referendum in three years to approve a new constitution, this time to validate the military ouster of their first fairly elected president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Tens of thousands of soldiers and police officers were deployed to shield the vote from protest by opponents or disruption by militants. Just before polling started, an explosion occurred outside a courthouse in the teeming neighborhood of Imbaba, damaging the building but causing no casualties, witnesses said. The level of turnout will be the most closely watched measure of success for the plebiscite, widely viewed as the launch of the presidential campaign by the military leader who removed Mr. Morsi, General Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi.
The start of the ballot coincided with the third anniversary of events in Tunisia widely seen as the start of the Arab Spring. In Egypt, that brief era has resembled an arc leading from the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak to the rise of Islamist power and to the reassertion of military power with the ouster last July of President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood by Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi. Almost everyone expects those who do vote to support the charter in a landslide, and at several polling places Tuesday many voters expected a nearly unanimous result.
Since then, General Sisi has emerged as the country’s dominant force. For its part, the Muslim Brotherhood, now labeled a terrorist organization, has called for a boycott of the vote, making the size of the turnout a significant political factor. “What? Everybody is voting yes to the constitution!,” one man leaving a polling place exclaimed when he mistakenly thought he had overheard another voter say he had cast his ballot against it. “No, I meant I voted against the last one!,” that voter, Sami Hadid, 73, clarified, referring to the constitution drafted by an Islamist-led assembly and approved in the previous referendum a little more than one year ago.
Some Egyptians in the crowds after the explosion in Imbaba blamed the Brotherhood for the blast, urging compatriots to vote in large numbers in a display of support for General Sisi, witnesses said. The debate over the charter has been one-sided, to say the least. The Brotherhood, the Islamist group that had dominated Egypt’s free elections and now constitutes the main opposition, is boycotting the vote as an attempt to legitimate an illegal coup. The government has declared the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, jailed its leaders, seized its assets, and criminalized membership. It has shut down all the sympathetic Egyptian media outlets and arrested activists for even attempting to hang signs or stickers opposing the new charter.
While news reports spoke of long lines forming in advance of the poll, the numbers seemed to settle by midmorning at far lower levels than in a series of earlier ballots that have taken place since the overthrow of Mr. Mubarak. Egyptian diplomats said early returns from the relatively small number of overseas voters showed a low turnout but broad support for the revised constitution. At least seven members of Strong Egypt, a moderate Islamist party, have been arrested for attempting to hang posters against the charter, moving the party to boycott the vote rather than face more arrests. Another two women were arrested Tuesday for attempting to put up opposition signs as well, state media reported.
The proposed charter is not radically different from the Constitution drafted by an Islamist-led assembly and approved by a margin of almost two to one slightly more than a year ago. At that time, about a third of the electorate voted, setting a benchmark for the vote that began on Tuesday. By Tuesday afternoon, a small bomb had gone off near a court building in the Imbaba neighborhood of Giza, damaging a court building but injuring no one. The interior ministry officials had reported that at least five civilians were killed, at least eleven injured, and dozens arrested in clashes between security forces and what they said were Brotherhood members attempting to disrupt the vote.
The new text includes some broader language protecting religious freedom and women’s rights while excising some, but not all, of the stipulations that Islamic law is the bedrock of Egyptian jurisprudence. Its biggest changes concern increases in the power and autonomy of the military, the police and the judiciary — the three governmental institutions that teamed up to help force Mr. Morsi from power. Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim had warned in a television interview last week that “any attempt to disrupt the referendum or to prevent citizens from voting will be confronted by a level of force and severity that has not been seen before.” In official statements, the Brotherhood has told its members to stay away from polling places to avoid police violence.
While approval has been widely forecast, the authorities launched a huge campaign in advance of the ballot and have made it easier for Egyptians to vote outside the district of their official residence. On the other side, state-run and private television networks--- controlled by a small elite hostile to the Islamists-- signs hymns to the constitution with a single voice. And Tuesday the streets were crowded with banners urging, “come down and vote,” “you will be judged on your vote,” or, “"Vote yes to the constitution and no to terrorism,”
The streets are full of billboards and signs urging a yes vote to finish the 2011 revolution that defined the Arab Spring. The state news media and Egyptian private television networks, all supportive of the military takeover, are effusive in their endorsement of the new charter and contain scarcely a word of criticism. “The state is proposing this charter with the logic of: 'you are either with me or with terrorism,’" said Ahmed Ragheb, of the National Community for Human Rights.
“Don’t embarrass me in front of the world,” General Sisi said at the weekend, “not me personally but the military, because in the military we are as united as one man’s heart, and we adhere to democracy.” Some said the silencing of public dissent exceeded even the ritualistic plebiscites that punctuated the 30 year rule of former President Hosni Mubarak.
“This time it has surpassed Mubarak at the height of his authoritarianism,” said Hossam Bahgat, the founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
For virtually the first time since the 1989 one-candidate referendum granting Mr. Mubarak a fourth term, Mr. Bahgat said he planned to sit out the vote. “Like most Egyptians, I guess that I am indifferent,” he said.
The lines at polling places around Cairo seemed far smaller Tuesday than they did during the previous constitutional referendum, in December 2012, and reports from around the country suggested smaller crowds as well. But the vote will take place over two days, voters have often waited until they get off work, and the ultimate turnout was impossible to forecast. (Egyptian state radio reported long lines and big crowds everywhere.)
About a third of the electorate turned out to vote on the last charter, which passed by a margin of about two to one but was rejected by a majority in Cairo. The referendum had followed a noisy debate in which anti-Islamist politicians, judges, diplomats, and most of the privately owned media attacked it for opening a door to the future religious restrictions on individual liberties.
The new charter retains the main clause stipulating that the principles of Islamic law are the wellspring of Egyptian jurisprudence. It removes a more controversial clause that sought to constrain the way judges interpreted those principles, defining them according to the broad body outlines of mainstream Sunni Muslim scholarship. But the ultraconservative Islamist party Al Nour is still supporting the charter, accepting its fidelity to Islamic law.
The biggest revisions, though, increase the power and autonomy of the military, the police and the judiciary—the three branches of the old Egyptian bureaucracy that played in biggest role in Mr. Morsi’s overthrow.
For those who did vote Tuesday, the referendum had the feeling of a martial pageant soldiers and police surrounded every polling place, and in some places voters leaving the polls paused to get their pictures taken with officers.
“It is all for the love of our country and the love of Sisi!,” crowed Nadia Sayed, 64, sitting with a group of female friends across the street from a polling place in the Nasr City neighborhood after voting. “He will do everything good for our grandchildren,” she said, before the women broke into ululation and song—"Bless the Hands,” a pop-song celebrating the army and police for removing Mr. Morsi.
Even in neighborhoods that had been considered Islamist strongholds—from the slums of Imbaba to middle class Nasr City--- it seemed impossible to find a voter who said he or she had voted against the charter, although soldiers and police tried to keep a close watch on journalists conducting interviews.
Almost everyone brought up the Brotherhood, volunteering that they voted for the new constitution mainly to be oppose the group, which won successive elections but failed to control the Egyptian bureaucracy, revive the economy or calm the streets.
“May God avenge us!,” one voter leaving the polling a polling place in Nasr City shouted to journalists. “They made us suffer for the last three years!”
Gamal Abdel Tawab, 55, a physician in Imbaba, said he voted for the new constitution “because I love my country, I love my army, and I hate the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Next, he said, he looked forward to voting for a new president: General Sisi.