Early Tallies Show Revised Charter Passing in Egypt
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Version 0 of 1. CAIRO — A revised Constitution validating the military takeover in Egypt this past summer appeared headed for lopsided approval by more than 90 percent of the votes cast, according to early tabulations in the official and private news media on Thursday, as international monitors raised alarms about the fairness of the plebiscite. Ratification by a wide margin was universally expected, but the turnout and credibility of the referendum are important tests for Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, the defense minister who removed President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Approval of the charter will provide the first electoral legitimacy to the military takeover, setting the stage for General Sisi to run for president. The public debate preceding the referendum, held on Tuesday and Wednesday, was as one-sided as the early vote count. The government has outlawed the main opposition group, the Brotherhood; imprisoned its leaders; silenced its news media; seized its assets and criminalized its membership. (It called for a boycott of the vote.) State-run and private news media echoed with endorsements of the charter while hardly a critic could be found. Banners urging a “yes” vote were everywhere, and attempting to hang a “no” sign was a crime. Several who tried were arrested. “The very narrow political space for any groups that are opposed to the referendum is very problematic,” said David Carroll, the director of the democracy program at the Carter Center, the nonprofit group founded by former President Jimmy Carter. The center has witnessed seven Egyptian elections since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, but the group declined to monitor this one because of concerns about the context and process. “It will be hard to conclude that this process has allowed for open participation,” Mr. Carroll said, although the turnout “may tell us something about the number of people who support the general direction of the ‘road map’ ” laid out by General Sisi and the government he installed. In a statement early Thursday, the military applauded “everyone who created the glorious scene: the masses of the people, the men of the armed forces, the security men, and the media men who have been the voice of the homeland against the voice of its enemies.” About a third of the electorate voted in December 2012 in a referendum to approve the previous charter, drafted by an Islamist-led assembly. Of those, about two-thirds voted in favor. It was the subject of a noisy public debate over whether it fulfilled the promises of the 2011 revolt or opened the door to religious restrictions on individual freedoms. The new charter trims some references to Islam and reduces the accountability of the army and the police. The lack of suspense about the outcome alone may have hurt the turnout. At many polling stations in Cairo, the crowds appeared notably smaller than they had a year before. Soldiers and police officers guarding the polling places sometimes outnumbered voters. But turnout reports from around the country were mixed, and clear comparisons were impossible. The government for the first time offered voters still registered in their birthplace an opportunity to cast ballots at special stations in other parts of the country, and those polling places drew enormous crowds. The government projected big numbers. State news media reported Wednesday that the Ministry of Justice’s “operations room” put turnout in several polling stations at 50 percent of those eligible on just the first day, while Hany Mahmoud, the minister of administrative development, said the cabinet put the first day’s turnout at 28 percent. As in the other recent elections, the ballots were cast into transparent bins sealed with plastic and stored in the polling stations overnight to prevent tampering. Counting began in each station after polls closed Wednesday, and television networks filmed it in progress. But observers noted that the absence of any opposition might have consequences for the counting as well. In the past, the Brotherhood was the most vigilant monitor of the counting, sending volunteers to watch each station and quickly publicizing each local count to prevent any alteration. “Without the Muslim Brotherhood and given the limits placed on citizen observer groups,” Mr. Carroll said, “there won’t be a meaningful independent check on what is happening.” |