CAIRO — Almost everyone who cast ballots — 98.1 percent — supported Egypt’s new constitution in last week’s referendum, results announced Saturday show, but a boycott by Islamists and low youth turnout suggest the country is still dangerously divided.
Nearly 20 million voters backed the new constitution, almost double the number of those who voted for one drafted in 2012 under the government of toppled Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. Only a narrow sliver of voters — 1.9 percent — voted against the charter, after a massive government-sponsored campaign supporting it and the arrest of activists campaigning against it.
“Despite a milieu of intense social upheaval and acts of terrorism and sabotage that sought to derail the process, Egyptians have now marked yet another defining moment in our road map to democracy,” said presidential spokesman Ehab Badawy. “The outcome represents nothing less than the dawning of a new Egypt.”
The expected overwhelming support for the charter is seen as key to legitimizing Egypt’s military-backed interim government and the political plan put in place since Morsi’s ouster in July. Analysts say it also suggests military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who led the coup against Morsi, has enough support to make a rumored run for the presidency himself.
It was the first vote since the military removed Morsi after massive protests in July.
Hundreds celebrated in the streets after officials announced the results, including Hoda Hamza, a housewife who waved an Egyptian flag in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and carried a picture of el-Sissi with an inscription reading: “By the order of the people, el-Sissi is president.”
Hamza called the passage of the constitution a foregone conclusion.
Now, “I wish el-Sissi will be president,” Hamza said. “We have no better man. … If it weren’t for the army, we wouldn’t have food on the table.”
Morsi supporters, who boycotted the vote, immediately challenged the results. Despite being outlawed and labeled a terrorist group, Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and its allies continue to hold near-daily protests that often devolve into clashes with police.
“Even if 38 percent of the voters took part, that still means that 62 percent of the public rejects” the interim government, said Imam Youssef, a member of the Brotherhood’s coalition against the July coup and an ultraconservative Islamist party. “They are trying to legitimize their coup.”
Egypt’s High Election Commission said 38.6 percent of more than 53 million eligible voters took part in the two-day poll.
