AP News, March 27th, 2007
A state-appointed human rights body accused Egypt's government of fraud Tuesday, charging that public sector-workers were forced to vote in a referendum on constitutional reform. But the government said the people overwhelmingly endorsed the amendments.
Justice Minister Mamdouh Marei told a news conference that the 'yes' vote in Monday's referendum on 34 constitutional amendments was 76 percent. Officials said only 27 percent of the 36 million voters had bothered to cast their ballots.
Opposition groups had urged voters to boycott the referendum, arguing the amendments were a setback to democracy as they increased the president's security powers and the chances of fraud in elections _ a long term problem in Egypt.
President Hosni Mubarak greeted the results announced Tuesday as a victory for the people and promised further unspecified political reform. He did not mention the low turnout.
But the National Council for Human Rights, a state-appointed body headed by former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali, reported numerous flaws.
"Voter lists were inaccurate, some civil society monitors were prevented from observing some polling stations, local authorities in some provinces organized mass voting, and some electoral officials intervened in the voting process and sometimes filled in ballots," the council said in a statement. "Mass voting" is Egyptian parlance for busing state workers to the polling station.
"The most important and dangerous aspect of the referendum was the low turnout despite a big media campaign in the three preceding days," the council said. The official turnout was 2 percent higher than in the contested 2005 legislative elections.
Egyptian rights groups had predicted an extremely low turnout as many polling stations were virtually deserted for most of the day.
One of the leaders of Kifaya, a political activist group that took a leading role in the boycott campaign, scoffed at the declared results.
"In Egypt nobody believes the official figures, only if he is insane," said Abdel-Halim Qandil.
"And, supposing that I am insane and I believed these figures, they would mean that the government's popularity has halved," he said, referring to the fact that the government declared a turnout of 54 percent in the 2005 referendum and turnout of 27 percent on Monday.
The U.S. government expressed skepticism about the referendum, saying the vast majority of Egyptians did not choose to participate.
"Many voices in Egypt have criticized the abbreviated process, which led up to this referendum, and have criticized the amendments themselves as a missed opportunity to advance reform and a step backwards," White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.
"We also took note of significant discrepancies between the estimates of voter turnout provided by the government and by both Egyptian and foreign media and observers."
She said the Bush administration will continue to raise the issue of democratic reform with senior Egyptian officials.
The referendum on the 34 amendments was held only seven days after the parliament approved them, leaving many voters uninformed. One voter, house painter Hassan Abdel Salaam, told The Associated Press on Monday: "I swear to God, I don't know what I'm voting for."
The amendments abolish emergency laws, allow election supervision by an independent commission and ban political parties based on religion. Mubarak said Sunday the changes would "give a new push to political party activity" and "stop the exploitation of religion and illegal political behavior."
But the opposition said the amendments would reduce the judicial checks on election fraud _ a long time problem in Egypt _ and strengthen the president's security powers at the expense of civil rights. The biggest opposition bloc, the Muslim Brotherhood, bitterly resented the ban on religion-based parties, an amendment that was clearly aimed at the group.
Justice Minister Marei said 9,701,833 people voted, or about 27 percent of the country's 35,865,660 eligible voters. The 'yes' vote was 76 percent and the 'no' vote 24 percent.
The Hisham Mubarak Law Center issued a statement saying electoral officials created "an illusionary high turnout through stuffing the ballot boxes after voting closed." The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights accused the government of "mass voting" _ forcing public-sector workers to go to polling stations.
