Egypt Constitution Passes, Economic Crunch Looms

In a clear sign of anxiety over the economy, the turbulence of the past month and expected austerity measures ahead have some Egyptians hoarding dollars for fear the currency is about to take a significant turn for the weaker.

The battle over the constitution left Egypt deeply polarized at a time when the government is increasingly cash-strapped. Supporters of the charter campaigned for it on the grounds that it will lead to stability, improve the grip of Morsi and his allies on state institutions, restore investor confidence and bring back tourists.

"In times of change, politics are the driver of the economy and not the other way around," said Mourad Aly, a media adviser for the political arm of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, the backbone of Morsi's presidency and the main group that backed the constitution.

But there are already multiple fights on the horizon.

The U.S. State Department bluntly told Morsi it was now time to make compromises, acknowledging deep concerns over the constitution.

"President Morsi, as the democratically elected leader of Egypt, has a special responsibility to move forward in a way that recognizes the urgent need to bridge divisions, build trust, and broaden support for the political process," said Patrick Ventrell, acting deputy spokesman. "We hope those Egyptians disappointed by the result will seek more and deeper engagement. "

He said Egypt "needs a strong, inclusive government to meet its many challenges."

After a spate of resignations of senior aides and advisers during the constitutional crisis, Morsi appeared to have lost another member of his government late Tuesday night when his communications minister posted on his Twitter account that he was resigning.

The minister Hany Mahmoud said he "couldn't cope with the culture of government work, particular in the current conditions of the country." The resignation could not be immediately verified because it came so late at night.

Morsi signed a decree Tuesday night that put the new constitution into effect after the election commission announced the official results of the referendum held over the past two weekends. It said the constitution has passed with a 63.8 percent "yes." Turnout of 32.9 percent of Egypt's nearly 52 million registered voters was lower than most other elections since the uprising nearly two years ago that ousted authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak

Morsi is expected to call for a new election of parliament's lawmaking lower house within two months.

In the meantime, the traditionally toothless upper house, the Shura Council, will hold legislative power. But the chamber is overwhelmingly Islamist-dominated so any laws it passes could spark a backlash from the opposition. Many fear a legal crackdown on independent media, highly critical of Islamists.

In a bid to reach out to opposition, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood said he hoped the charter will be a "good omen" for Egyptians.

"Let's all begin to build the renaissance of our country with free will, good intentions and strong determination, men, women, Muslims and Christians," Mohammed Badie said on his Twitter account.

But the opposition said the passing of the document is was not the end of the political dispute. Critics fear the constitution will usher in Islamic law in Egypt and restrict personal freedoms.

"This is not a constitution that will last for a long time," said Khaled Dawoud, a spokesman for the main opposition group, the National Salvation Front, vowing to fight for more freedoms, social and economic rights.

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As Egypt Constitution Passes, New Fights Lie Ahead

“The People Sided With Democracy,” the flagship state newspaper, Al Ahram, declared in a headline.

“Wholesale Violations,” the largest independent daily, Al Masry Al Youm, said.

Passage of the constitution begins what its supporters call the first experiment in Islamist democracy, and its results will be watched across the Arab world. Its approval is a victory for President Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, who had sought to suspend temporarily the authority of the Egyptian courts in order to prevent rulings that he feared might block the referendum.

But a backlash against Mr. Morsi and his Islamist allies over their authoritarian tactics has led to new pressure to rebut charges that they intend to exploit loopholes in the charter in order to move Egypt toward theocracy.

In a news conference on Sunday, opposition leaders called the charter illegitimate and vowed to use any peaceful means available to prevent it from being carried out. “This is a constitution that lacks the most important prerequisite for a constitution: consensus,” said Hamdeen Sabahi, a leftist and former presidential candidate. “This means we can’t build our future based on this text at all.”

Mr. Sabahi and other political leaders accused the Islamists of manipulating religious faith to rally support for the constitution in an effort to increase their own power and to “support capitalist interests.” The opposition also vowed to carry the momentum from the fight against the charter into the parliamentary elections.

“We will confirm to them that deceiving in the name of religion is done once and for all,” the main opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front, said in a statement.

Amr Hamzawy, a political scientist and liberal political leader, said the size of the vote against the constitution was a measure of the opposition’s growing clout. “We have a majority that isn’t big, and a minority that isn’t small. This means there is an evident division in society,” he said, adding, “We feel we’ve made a major achievement.”

About 64 percent of voters in the two-part referendum approved the new charter, Egyptian state media reported Sunday, citing preliminary results. About 57 percent voted yes in last weekend’s first phase, which included Cairo, where a sizable majority voted no. In the more rural precincts that voted on Saturday, more than 70 percent voted yes, outlining Egypt’s cultural divide.

The turnout in both rounds remained low, at just over 30 percent of eligible voters, according to the preliminary figures. A referendum on a plan for the transition after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak drew about 41 percent of eligible voters.

The opposition leaders argued that violations of voting procedures had compromised the results, and they demanded that the election authorities rule on those allegations before issuing official results, which are expected Monday.

But the ballots were cast into transparent boxes and counted on the spot under the supervision of independent monitors, reducing opportunities for fraud. The fact that the constitution was approved by 4.5 million votes — out of 16.2 million cast — suggested that rigging the results would have required systematic fraud.

International experts said the constitution does not significantly alter the role of religion in Egyptian law. But it raises the stakes in future contests over who will interpret it. Although the new charter preserves an article from the old constitution declaring that the principles of Islamic law are a main source of legislation, it adds a new article, No. 219, which broadly defines those principles as the established schools of Sunni Muslim scholarship. Independent scholars have said that whether the new provisions make a difference will depend on who controls their application.

Zaid al-Ali, a researcher at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an intergovernmental organization, said the constitution’s principal defects were not about religion. The biggest problem, he said, is that it protects the Egyptian military from legal and parliamentary oversight, engraving its autonomy in the constitution. Leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood had said privately for months that they were willing to provide the military such constitutional protections in order to ease the transition of power from the generals who assumed control from Mr. Mubarak.

A second problem, Mr. Ali said, is the failure to decentralize decision-making. While most of the world has shifted power closer to the local level, he said, the Arab states have resisted out of a fear that they might be divided up as they were under colonial rule. “Because of the centralization in the Arab region, as soon as you step out of the capital you are in different universe,” Mr. Ali said. “It is an ineffectual way to meet people’s needs, and services aren’t delivered.”

Sectarian animosities continued to surround the vote. The Coptic Church pulled its representatives from the constitutional assembly in a dispute over the provisions about Islamic law in jurisprudence, and before the vote many Christians said it was axiomatic that everyone of their faith would vote against the charter.

Opposition leaders charged Sunday that Islamists had intimidated Christians or blocked their access to the polls in some precincts. But the accusations could not be confirmed.

Also on Sunday, a small group of President Morsi’s Islamist supporters continued a sit-in outside the constitutional court, still determined to discourage it from any ruling that might interfere with the referendum before the results are official.

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