Egypt’s referendum results may come with deadly clashes

on Sunday, December 23, 2012

It became obvious that Egypt’s referendum over the new constitution is in the wrong direction, not because the result is going to be accepting or rejecting the constitution, but because the referendum continues to lead to clashes in the streets. The National Salvation Front proved that there are sever violations happened during the first and the second phases of the vote over the constitution, while Islamists backing President Mohamed Morsi insist that the vote result will be “accepting” the constitution because of the people’s hope to find stability.

The Muslims Brotherhood is Egypt have been working hard in the past week to gather as much acceptors as it can, hoping to see a big difference in votes between accepting and rejecting the new constitution. On the other side, Egypt’s opposition detected fraud and violations took place during the voting process in its first and second phases such as, having fake judges observing the voting centers, as a lot of voting centers were being managed by teachers or University professors, which is against the law in Egypt.

Moreover, unofficial results for the first round of voting released by Freedom and Justice party, which is the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, showed that 56% said “yes” for the new constitution, while 44% said “No”, knowing that the majority in Cairo said “No” and this clearly annoyed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In case the trend continued today, it is expected to see massive marches all over Egypt refusing the constitution and the fraud took place by Islamists who support President Morsi.

We should say that the opposition announced that the first round’s result was 66% for “No” and 34% for “Yes”. The opposition also reported what it called “unprecedented rigging” which included more than 700 violations in only 10 governorates, amid the absence of judicial observation.

Clashes were seen in different governorates during the voting phases and it was said that a man was killed with gun shot in Qina during fights between supporters and the opposition. Civilian Organizations monitoring the referendum said that a number of Christians were stopped from going to their voting center, as Islamists closed the centers and threatened Christian families, knowing that almost all Christian citizens in Egypt are rejecting the new constitution. However, the Police managed to open some of the closed voting centers, but Islamists are still warning Christians from going to vote, especially in Al Minia.

It is expected that we will see a number of demonstrations in the coming hours, before announcing the referendum result, while deadly clashes remain expected. It was said that the Muslim Brotherhood members are preparing to stay in the streets tonight and tomorrow to celebrate the result that should come showing Egyptians agreed on the constitution, as they expect, while the opposition is expected to call for a demonstration in Tahrir square tomorrow, after the preliminary signs of the referendum results appear.

The Egyptian army started to secure the main buildings all over Egypt, and it is increasing the number of soldiers around Ittehadya Palace that witnessed deadly clashes before between Islamists and the opposition.

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