Hans Rustad Opposisjonen i Egypt har bestemt seg: den vil ikke delta i folkeavstemningen om ny grunnlov lørdag. Den nekter å gi legitimitet til en prosess den mener har vært udemokratisk. Nå er situasjonen i landet så ustabil at avstemningen bør utsettes, mener opposisjonen.
Men det nekter president Mohamed Morsi. Dermed mener opposisjonen den ikke har noe valg: den må boikotte valget.
The opposition “rejects lending legitimacy to a referendum that will definitely lead to more sedition and division,” said Sameh Ashour, a spokesman for a coalition that calls itself the National Salvation Front. Holding a referendum “in a state of seething and chaos,” Mr. Ashour said, amounted to “a reckless and flagrant absence of responsibility, risking driving the country into violent confrontations that endanger its national security.”
With the decision to boycott the referendum, the opposition signaled that it had given up hope that it could defeat the draft charter at the polls, and had opted instead to try to undermine the referendum’s legitimacy.
The call for new protests — with major demonstrations expected at the presidential palace again on Tuesday and Friday — ensures that questions about Egypt’s national unity and stability will continue to overshadow debate about the specific contents of the charter. Although international experts who have studied the draft say it is hardly more religious than Egypt’s old constitution, opponents say it fails to adequately protect individual rights from being constricted by a future Islamist majority in Parliament.
“We have broken the barrier of fear: A constitution that aborts our rights and freedoms is one that we will bring down today, before tomorrow,” Mr. ElBaradei wrote in a Twitter posting early on Sunday. “Our power is in our will.”
As his proposed compromise faded and tensions mounted on Sunday, Mr. Morsi followed through on plans announced the day before to authorize the military to protect national institutions and polling places. His order, printed in the official gazette on Sunday, amounts to a form of martial law, because it will allow soldiers under the direction of the defense minister to arrest civilians under a military code of justice.
Foreløpig ser det ut til at de militære stiller seg bak Morsi og Brorskapet. Dermed har en ny allianse oppstått.The apparent alliance between the Brotherhood and the military reverses 60 years of mutual hostility, and it is likely to disappoint some Egyptians who fear the Islamists and had begun to whisper that the military might remove Mr. Morsi from power.
