Mohamed Mursi: Passing Constitutional Amendments Worse Than 1967 Defeat

Counselor Mamdouh Marie, the Egyptian Justice Minister, said on Tuesday that the approval on the constitutional amendments in Monday referendum reached 75.9 % while the turnout was 27.1 % out of the registered voters (36 millions)
 
 Marie said, in a press conference:” The turnout in the referendum reached about 9701.000 and those who approved the constitutional amendments are 7172 436 persons while 2276738 (24.1%) voted (no) to the amendments.
 
These figures contradict with those declared by independent observers in the referendum process; they confirmed that the turned out was no more than 3 %, while some optimistic estimations said the turnout reached about 10 %, to show the success of the calls for boycott of the Egyptian opposition, specially the Muslim Brotherhood, and to prove that all government methods to provide a high turnout for the referendum failed; these methods included the government initiations’ mobilizing employees to vote (yes) in return for bribes and presents, in addition to rigging and stuffing the ballot papers in many constituencies.
 
For his part, Dr. Mohamed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood executive bureau member, said in a statement to Ikhwanweb that:” the security bodies’ unjustified measures that lead to restricting freedoms and suppressing the efforts of those who want to participate positively in the political process aim in the first place at helping ruling National Democratic party to extend its domination over the political action without any partner, although our homeland needs collective efforts which we wanted to see practically in the constitutional amendments.
 
Murs added that what happened on the day of the referendum is worse than the 1967 defeat that Egypt faced; there was a scandalous forgery to the will of the Egyptian people; all human rights organizations, civil society institutions and satellite channels in addition to reports of independent observers nationwide confirm that the turnout is at best no less than 5 %; from where has the Justice Minister brought that fake 27.1 % turnout.
 
Dr. Mursi said that he expects more political tensions through giving the police state a constitutional justification to violate private and public freedoms, establishing an everlasting rule for the National Democratic Party, and losing any hope of seeing a power transition, in addition to legalizing looting wealth, forging people’s will, and giving a deathblow to the citizen’s feeling of patriotism.
 
Dr Mursi confirmed that this retreat will also lead to a retreat in development; the control of the executive authority over justice and the police’s iron grip over the judiciary will lead definitely to smuggling money and investments to abroad; Mursi highlights the serious legislations that will be drafted after passing the amendments including sidelining most Egyptians and restricting entering parliament and participating in the political process to parties which are recognized by the regime; these parties account for only 3% of the Egyptian and the other 97% will be sidelined .