Egyptians vote on controversial draft charter
Worldwide, Daily news | ankakh | December 22, 2012 14:38
Egyptians voted on Saturday in the final round of a referendum on a new constitution championed by President Mohamed Morsi and his Islamist allies against fierce protests from the secular-leaning opposition.
From early morning, men and women filed into polling stations in separate lines to cast their ballots, AFP correspondents in Giza, in southwest Cairo, reported.
The proposed charter was expected to be adopted after already garnering 57 percent support in the first round of the referendum a week ago.
But the slim margin and the low first-round turnout, in which fewer than one in three eligible voters cast a ballot, has emboldened the opposition, which looks likely to continue its campaign against Morsi after Saturday’s voting.
Egypt has already been shaken by a month of protests, some of them violent.
On December 5, eight people were killed and hundreds injured in clashes between rival demonstrators outside the presidential palace in Cairo.
On the eve of Saturday’s polling, more clashes erupted in Egypt’s second city Alexandria, injuring 62 people, including 12 police officers. Twelve people were arrested, as stone-throwing mobs torched vehicles, the interior ministry said.
Some 250,000 police and soldiers were deployed to provide security during the referendum. The army has also deployed tanks around the presidential palace in Cairo since early this month.
The constitution was drafted by a panel dominated by Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and ultra-orthodox Salafist groups. Christians and liberals who criticised changes they saw as weakening human and women’s rights boycotted the process.
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