Egyptians line up to vote on new charter; 11 killed

A police officer directs a woman at a polling site Tuesday in Cairo as voting got under way on a constitutional referendum.
A police officer directs a woman at a polling site Tuesday in Cairo as voting got under way on a constitutional referendum.

CAIRO - A referendum on a new constitution laid bare the sharp divisions in Egypt six months after the military removed the elected Islamist president. Pro-army voters lined up Tuesday outside polling stations, singing patriotic songs, kissing images of Egypt’s top officer and sharing their upbeat hopes for their troubled nation.

Despite heavy security, 11 people were killed in sporadic violence, with protesters burning tires and pelting police with rocks and firebombs to create just enough danger to keep many voters at home.

Still, the first of two days of voting yielded telling signs that the national sentiment was overwhelmingly behind military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, whose possible presidential run later this year has grown more likely by the day. That a career army officer might be Egypt’s next president has raised questions about the future of democracy in Egypt, but it also speaks to the fatigue felt by most Egyptians after three years of deadly turmoil and economic woes.

Standing in line to cast his ballot, Ismail Mustafa said he was voting yes in the hope of ending the turmoil that has consumed Egypt since the 2011 ouster of the country’s longtime autocratic ruler Hosni Mubarak.

“This is it, we have had it. I will vote yes’ even if it is the last thing I do,” Mustafa declared outside a Cairo polling station.

This week’s balloting is a key milestone in a military-backed political road map toward new elections for a president and a parliament after the coup, which has left Egypt sharply divided between Muslim Brotherhood supporters in one camp and the military and security forces in the other, along with a large segment of a population made tired by three years of turmoil.

At a polling station in the Imbaba district of Giza province, Kholoud Ahmed, 39, said she would back el-Sissi because “he’s a real man and will look after this country.” Ahmed, who wore an Islamic-style face veil that only revealed her blue eyes, said she was voting yes in the referendum because “after all the torture we’ve been living through, we want stability.”

Political turmoil has persisted in the three years since the overthrow of Mubarak, keeping tourists and foreign investors away and leaving the economy growing at the slowest pace in two decades.

The vote was taking place in a climate of fear and paranoia, with authorities, the mostly pro-military media and a significant number of Egyptians showing little or no tolerance for dissent. Campaigning for a vote of no risked arrest by the police. Egyptians who have voiced their opposition to the charter, or even just parts of it, are quickly labeled as traitors.

Critics said the referendum campaign has highlighted the military-backed government’s intolerance for dissent.

The Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party called the new constitution “void” and said it was “drafted by a minority that wants to provide the killers with impunity.”

The Strong Egypt Party, headed by former Islamist presidential candidate Abdel-Moneim Aboul-Fotouh, said its members were arrested while putting up posters urging a vote of no. The party later decided to join the Brotherhood in sitting out the vote.

The streets were crowded Tuesday with banners saying, “You will be judged on your vote” and “Vote yes to the constitution and no to terrorism.”

“The state is proposing this charter with the logic of: ‘You are either with me or with terrorism,’” said Ahmed Ragheb, a human-rights activist.

The suppression of opposition doesn’t “give me the impression that there’s freedom to say what I want,” said political activist Wael Eskandar. “I won’t bother to take part in this charade.”

Nearly 400,000 soldiers and policemen fanned out across the nation of some 90 million people to protect polling stations and voters against possible attacks by militants loyal to ousted Islamist President Mohammad Morsi. Cars were prevented from parking or driving by polling stations, and women were searched by female police officers. Military helicopters hovered over Cairo and other major cities, and grim-faced, black-clad masked commandos stood guard outside polling centers.

Shortly before polls opened, an explosion struck a Cairo courthouse, damaging its facade and shattering windows in nearby buildings but causing no casualties in the densely populated neighborhood of Imbaba - a Brotherhood stronghold.

The Health Ministry said 11 people died and 28 were wounded in clashes that broke out between Morsi supporters and government security forces on the sidelines of voting in Cairo, the adjacent province of Giza and two provinces south of the capital, Bani Suef and Sohag.

Four of those were killed when gunfire broke out between police and gunmen on rooftops in Sohag, security officials said. Three others were wounded, including a senior police officer.

A Morsi supporter also was shot to death as he and about 100 others tried to storm a polling station in the province of Bani Suef south of Cairo, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. It was not clear who was behind the shooting.

In Cairo’s working-class district of Nahya, pro-Morsi protesters shot at and pelted with rocks a polling station before closing all entrances with chains, scaring away voters and locking election officials inside, Mohammed Seragedeen, the judge in charge of the station, said.

Security forces later fired tear gas to disperse the protesters and allow voting to resume, he said.

The referendum is the sixth nationwide vote since Mubarak was toppled in a popular uprising in 2011, with the five others widely considered the freest ever seen in Egypt, including the June 2012 balloting won by Morsi. But this vote was tainted by criticism that many of the freedoms won in the anti-Mubarak revolution have vanished amid a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, which has spread to others as the military-backed administration tries to suppress all dissent.

The new charter, drafted by a liberal-dominated committee appointed by the military-backed government, would ban political parties based on religion, give women equal rights and protect the status of minority Christians. It also gives the military special status by allowing it to select its own candidate for the job of defense minister for the next eight years and empowering it to send civilians before military tribunals.

The charter is a heavily amended version of a constitution written by Morsi’s Islamist allies and ratified in December 2012 with some 64 percent of the vote but with a nationwide turnout of just more than 30 percent.

The current government is looking for a bigger yes majority and larger turnout to win undisputed legitimacy and perhaps a popular mandate for military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, to run for president this year. El-Sissi has yet to say whether he plans to seek the nation’s highest office.

On Tuesday, long lines of voters began to form nearly two hours before polling stations opened in some Cairo districts, including Imbaba, where the blast promptly whipped up anti-Brotherhood sentiment with chants and shouting against the Islamist group.

“The constitution is not perfect,” said Ameena Abdel-Salam after she cast her ballot in Cairo’s upscale Zamalek district. “But we need to move forward, and we can fix it later.”

Women and the elderly were heavily represented. The mood was generally upbeat, hostile toward the Brotherhood and hopeful that the charter would bring better days. In one women-only line in Cairo, voters sang the national anthem together as well as patriotic songs dating back to the 1960s. “El-Sissi is my president,” they chanted as some jubilantly ululated.

Manal Hussein, who is from a village below the Giza Pyramids plateau west of Cairo, wore a dress in the red, black and white colors of the national flag. Her daughter wore an Islamic veil in the same colors.

“This vote brings to an end the era of the Brotherhood, who divided us and turned family members against each other,” Hussein said.

The Brotherhood, now branded as a terrorist group, has called for a boycott of the vote. Morsi is facing three separate trials on charges that carry the death penalty.

The unprecedented security surrounding the vote follows months of violence that authorities have blamed on Islamic militants. In the six months since Morsi’s ouster, there has been an assassination attempt on the interior minister and deadly attacks on key security officers, soldiers, policemen and provincial security and military intelligence headquarters.

“You must come out and vote to prove to those behind the dark terrorism that you are not afraid,” Interim President Adly Mansour said after he cast his ballot.

In several semi-rural localities on Cairo’s outskirts, lines outside polling stations were short and an atmosphere of apathy appeared to prevail. In some instances, residents said they have been repeatedly warned by local Brotherhood leaders against voting. In more extreme cases, Morsi supporters pelted polling stations with rocks and sprayed them with gunfire on Tuesday, enough to scare voters away.

In Kirdassa, one of those Brotherhood strongholds near Cairo, turnout was weak.

“This is a place that is 80 percent Brotherhood, so what do you expect?” accountant and local resident Mohammed Mohammadi said. “They have been staging rallies nightly to urge people to vote ‘no.’”

In Assiut, a stronghold of Islamists and home to a large Christian community south of Cairo, voters posed with posters of el-Sissi next to Tawadros II, the Coptic Orthodox pontiff, as patriotic songs blared from speakers.

Many of Assiut’s Christians have complained that Islamists, through intimidation and outright violence, prevented them from voting on the Islamist-backed constitution in December 2012. Not this time, they said.

“This time, we are not afraid of anyone,” 30-year-old Heba Girgis said after casting her ballot. “Last time we were not heard. This time we said yes, and our yes will prevail.”

Meanwhile, a spending bill introduced in the U.S. Congress would restore $1.5 billion in aid to Egypt, but only on condition that the Egyptian government ensures democratic changes.

The bill links the $1.3 billion in military aid and $250 million in economic aid to Egypt’s sustaining its security relationship with the U.S. and abiding by the Egypt-Israeli peace pact.

A Senate Appropriations Committee summary of the bill said some of the aid would be given only if Egypt supports a democratic transition and holds democratic elections. The U.S. cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Egypt in October in response to the military coup that overthrew the Cairo government and to a crackdown on protesters.

Information for this article was contributed by Hamza Hendawi, Maggie Michael, Sarah El Deeb, Maggie Hyde, Mariam Rizk and Deb Reichmann of The Associated Press; by Mariam Fam, Salma El Wardany, Tarek El-Tablawy, Ahmed Khalilelsayed, Ola Galal and Ahmed A. Namatalla and Alaa Shahine of Bloomberg News; and by David D. Kirkpatrick and Alan Cowell of The New York Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/15/2014

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