Egypt hints at delaying controversial constitution
Protesters close in on palace while in Tahrir Square, calls for Morsi to quit
CAIRO — Egyptian VicePresident Mahmoud Mekki floated the possibility late Friday that the government might postpone a hugely controversial draft constitution that critics have condemned because they believe it gives some powers to unelected Islamic scholars and ignores the rights of women and the country’s Coptic Christian minority.
But representatives of the National Salvation Front, which represents eight opposition parties, continued to press President Mohammed Morsi to withdraw a special decree he issued in November that granted him vast powers. For the same reason they also refused to enter into a “dialogue” about the constitution that the president proposed in a speech on Thursday.
The report of a possible 11th-hour concession by the government capped a day of rumours and confusion as Egypt’s seemingly endless revolution edged closer to terrifying territory.
Tens of thousands of pro- testers continued to mass in the dark outside the presidential palace early Saturday. At one point some broke through a hastily erected concrete barrier and clambered on tanks near the palace walls. As they did so, other protesters continued to throng Tahrir Square to call for Morsi to quit.
Earlier in the day, secularists and Islamists clashed in Mahala, a key industrial centre in the Nile Delta, and in Luxor, Alexandria, Kafr El Sheikh and Morsi’s hometown, Zagazig. This followed the overnight ransacking of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Cairo headquarters.
The palace was the scene Wednesday of the worst violence since protests became part of daily life in Cairo two years ago. Security officials reacted to the deaths of six protesters there by calling on several opposition leaders to answer questions.
Islamists and secularists in the most populous Arab country briefly united to overthrow Hosni Mubarak last year, but have since become implacable foes. One side wants a state deeply grounded in Islamic principles, including Sharia. The secularists seek a nation that is far less rigid. Those opposing views have created a dangerous stalemate where any miscalculation or provocation could have grave consequences.
“We are not at a crossroads. We are at the end of the street,” said a young woman who works for a television station that backs the secularists. “There will be more bloodshed if neither side backs down.”
As several marches headed toward Tahrir Square at dusk Friday, an elderly newspaper vendor, Mohammed Abu Amara, watched the passing parade with an avuncular smile that seemed to suggest the protesters had no idea what they were doing.
“Their demonstrations make a lot of noise but there aren’t that many of them,” said Amara, who had the raisin-coloured forehead scar of a devout Muslim who touches his forehead down to the ground five times a day in prayer. “I like Morsi because he does not waver.”
At Cairo’s storied Cafe Riche, where intellectuals have discussed politics and hatched conspiracies for more than a century, officials from the opposition parties plotted their next moves and dismissed supporters of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, such as Amara, as ignoramuses.
“Such people only see themselves,” said Hamer Jabr, a lawyer and executive committee member of Al Kamara (the Dignity Party). The party is part of the Salvation Front, which co-ordinates the positions of a hodgepodge of leftists, liberals, Christians and supporters of the disgraced regime of Mubarak, who was deposed last year.
“Look how many people have come in the streets in the past few days to protest,” Jabr said. “We are the majority, but the other side does not see it.”
Amara, hawking newspapers in the street outside the café, was equally confident that the Islamists were a majority and that they would win the snap vote on the proposed constitution that Morsi has called for Dec. 15.
That was also the reluctant conclusion of Andre Krouwel, the Dutch founder of Vote Compass — an online survey tool that has been used in Canadian elections.
“About 70 per cent of the population will vote in favour of the constitution, but a majority of the people who are literate and can think for themselves are against it,” said Krouwel, whose organization has been working with an Egyptian university to prepare polling data designed to find out which parts of the draft constitution were the most problematic for voters.