CAIRO: The Supreme Constitutional Court announced Saturday that it will pronounce the verdict in a case appealing the results of a March 2007 referendum on recent amendments to the constitution this coming October.
Filed by a number of opposition members of the People’s Assembly (PA) and some judges, the case also claims that the constitutional amendments were in violation of citizen privacy and human rights among others and that there were irregularities in the elections.
Minister of Justice Mamdouh Marei announced the results of the referendum last March, claiming that 75.9 percent of Egyptians voted in favor of the 34 changes relating to the constitution.
Marei had also said that 27.1 percent of the 35 million registered voters participated in the referendum.
But the opposition has questioned both the alleged voter turnout and the poll results.
Ehab Al Khouly, head of Al Ghad party, accused the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) of tampering with the numbers. He told Daily News Egypt in a previous interview that he believed the opposition succeeded in urging people to boycott the referendum.
“The judiciary washes its hands of the referendum results, Ahmed Sabr, spokesman for the Judges’ Club told Agence France-Presse. “We will no longer be a fig leaf to cover something shameful.
The percentage that the government announced is “unrealistic, according to Hamdy Hassan, an MP affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
“This percentage has never been reached before in any election, even in the People’s Assembly elections, which have the highest participation rates, no turnout has ever exceeded 20 percent . So how can the referendum participation rate reach 27.1 percent? Hassan asked.
“All monitors of the polling stations agreed that the participation rate was very low and hardly reached five percent, Hassan added.
AFP also reported that opposition parties said the turnout hardly reached the required 10 percent.
Although approved by the PA, members of the opposition publicly objected to the amendments themselves, which they said severely harm Egyptian public interests and personal freedom.
A total of 109 members of the Muslim Brotherhood group and the Karama, Wafd, and Tagammu parties voted against the amendments in parliament.
A number of independents and one member of the NDP, Taher Hazin, also voted against.
The Wafd party rejected the proposed amendments to several articles in the constitution, mainly article 88, which removes judicial supervision of elections; article 179, which is related to the new terrorism law; and article 127 which determines the authority of the president over cabinet.
The Wafd party also objected to changes to article 76, which regulates presidential elections and article 93, which deals with the dismissal of members of parliament.
