Egyptians voted peacefully and in large numbers today in a referendum on an Islamist-backed draft constitution, hoping that the results would end three weeks of violence, division and distrust between the Islamists and their opponents over the ground rules of Egypt's promised democracy.
By midmorning, long queues had formed outside polling stations around the capital and the country. Military officers were on hand to ensure security. Despite a new outbreak of fighting over the charter in Alexandria the day before and opposition warnings of chaos, by late afternoon the streets of the capital were free of major protests for the first time in weeks.
The vote on a new constitution appeared to be yet another turning point for Egypt's nearly two-year-old revolution. After weeks of violence and threats of a boycott, the strong turnout and orderly balloting suggested a turn toward stability, if not the liberalism some revolutionaries had hoped for.
Regardless of the outcome of the vote, to be completed next Saturday, widespread participation provided the political process with a degree of credibility, pulling Egypt back from the brink of civil discord. It remained to be seen whether the losing side would accept the results, and many Egyptians may have cast ballots mainly out of a desire to end the bedlam of the political transition, but the election was expected to bolster the government's legitimacy and solidify the power of president Mohammed Mursi.
While they waited in line to cast their ballots, some Egyptians said their nation's new Islamist leaders had unfairly steamrollered the charter over the objections of other parties and the Coptic Christian Church, and that as a result the new charter failed to protect fundamental rights. Others blamed the Islamists' opponents for refusing to negotiate in an effort to undermine democracy because they could not win at the ballot box. Many expressed discontent with political leaders on both sides of the fight.
"Neither group can accept its opposition," said Ahmed Ibrahim (40) a government clerk waiting to vote in a middle-class neighborhood in the Nasr City area of Cairo. Whatever the outcome, he said, "one group in their hearts will feel wronged, and the other group will gloat over their victory, and so the wounds will remain."
The referendum on a new constitution once promised to be a day when Egyptians realized their visions of democracy, pluralism and national unity that defined the 18-day-revolt against then-president Hosni Mubarak. But then came nearly two
years of a chaotic political transition, in which Islamists, liberals, leftists, the military and the courts all jockeyed for power over an ever-shifting timetable.
The document that Egyptians voted on was a rushed revision of the old Mubarak charter, faulted by many international experts as a missed opportunity stuffed with broad statements about Egyptian identity but riddled with loopholes about the
protection of rights.
Worse still, for many, was the polarizing endgame battle that the charter provoked. Leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group allied with Mr Mursi, said more than 35 of its offices around the country, including its Cairo headquarters, had been attacked over the last three weeks. A night of street clashes between his Islamist supporters and their opponents killed at least 10.
Many voters waiting in line said they rejected the exploitation of the emotional issue of religion by both sides: the Islamists who sought to frame the debate over the constitution as a debate over Islamic law, and opponents who accused
Mursi and his Islamist allies of laying the groundwork for a theocracy.
Tensions with Egypt's Christians, believed to make up about 10 per cent of the population, were particularly critical during the debate. Ultraconservative Islamist satellite networks often faulted angry Christians for provoking violence, and many Christians were shocked that the Islamist leaders of the constitutional assembly had pushed the draft through even after the official representatives of the Coptic Church had withdrawn in protest.
Several Muslims voting against the constitution said they were offended at Friday prayer by imams who had urged them to vote 'yes' in the name of religion. In Alexandria, one such appeal by an ultraconservative sheik set off a street fight that injured more than a dozen people, until riot police broke it up with tear gas.
One Muslim who complained about pressure in his mosque, Ehab Abdel Hafeez, a 35-year-old salesman, said he had voted for Islamists in last year's parliamentary elections but intended to vote no on the constitution, in part because he saw
the president's Islamist supporters battling their opponents in the streets last week.
"What I saw there was savagery. They were like monsters with the dragging and the beating," he said.
"The Islamists have cut Islam to their own measurements, and it is not the Islam we know, a religion of mercy," he said. "Now we look like terrorists to the world."
The voting will be held in two phases because some judges who were required to supervise the process boycotted the referendum. The first day of voting, however, will be the most decisive, because it includes the Cairo and Alexandria
districts believed to hold the highest number of "no" votes. The constitution is likely to find more solid support in the rural districts voting next weekend.
Several voters said they had studied all 225 articles carefully and cited obscure provisions, like a clause suggesting that wages should reflect productivity instead of prices, or another about political asylum seekers.
Some had printed out copies from the Internet and marked them up in pen.Standing in line in the Abbasiya neighborhood, Ahmed Gallal said he tried to focus on the articles that were dividing Egyptians - 10 or 12, by his count.
"They did not need to create such divisions," he said."We should accept it with its flaws."
Talaat Mohamed (48) said he trusted Mursi not to abuse his powers as his authoritarian predecessors did, in part because he was a believer.
"If president Mursi did not fear God, he would be like Sadat and jail all who oppose him," Mohamed said, referring to former president Anwar el-Sadat, who was assassinated in 1981.
Others opposed to the constitution vowed to continue their protests even if it passed.
"The constitution will remain a problem, because the foundation of the house is going to be flawed," said Rami Yusef, a 23-year-old engineering student who was waiting to vote in Nasr City and is a member of the political party led by the former UN diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei. "The protests will go on."
But Hassaballah, also voting no, was less worried. Asked if the outcome would be accepted, he asked, "You mean by people like us, or the political people?"
"I am 45 years old," he said. "This is the first time I have voted. I think the referendum is beautiful."
New York Times