Egypt’s first exercise in democracy in decades was hailed as a success yesterday, but the result of a key referendum has raised fears in some quarters that Islamists will dominate looming elections.
Egyptians on Saturday voted 77 per cent in favour of proposed constitutional amendments intended to guide the Arab world’s most populous nation through new presidential and parliamentary elections within six months.
The Muslim Brotherhood threw its huge influence and organisation behind a “yes” vote, although youth groups that spearheaded the protests which forced Hosni Mubarak to resign as president last month had called for a “no” vote.
They argued that the timetable set by the military was too tight for them to organise at grassroots level, that the Muslim Brotherhood would benefit and that the changes to the Mubarak-era constitution were too limited. Mamdur Shahin, a member of Egypt’s ruling military council, was quoted by the Al-Akhbar daily as saying that parliamentary elections will be in September but did not specify the date for presidential polls. In an editorial, the mass-circulation daily Al-Ahram said the referendum was a “win for democracy,” a view echoed by the state-owned Al-Gomhuria which said: “Everybody has won in this referendum, whether they voted yes or no.”
The Coalition of the Revolution’s Youth urged supporters not to feel defeated after the result, and called on everyone to respect the result of the “historic democratic process” and quickly begin work on the next phase.
“We are now on the doorstep of a new era, in which Egyptians will shape their state for decades to come... we must work to carry on fulfilling the ambitions of the revolution,” the group said on its Facebook page. But others felt more threatened by the result.
“The referendum, while it was free of fraud, was not free of ‘influence’, especially by the Muslim Brotherhood and the religious trend in general,” wrote Suleiman Gouda in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.
“The mosques were used by these groups to influence the voters,” he said.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition movement in the country and officially banned in the Mubarak era, used its new found freedom – and organisational skills – to campaign for a “yes” vote.
The group, and other more fundamentalist religious movements, presented the “yes” vote as a religious duty, although many at polling stations said they voted “yes” for the sake of “stability” rather than religious inclinations.