The constitutional referendum wasn't really
about the document itself. All things considered, it's an improvement
over the charter approved when the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi was president in 2012, though
it retains a powerful political role for the army, including the right to try
civilians. Instead it was a referendum on the coup that deposed Mr. Morsi last
July: A "yes" vote was a yes to the military, and a yes to a removal of the
Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt's political life. A "no," mostly expressed in a
refusal to vote at all, was a no to the coup.
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Will Egypt's roiling street politics now
settle down? Probably not. The Brotherhood has vowed to continue protests and
there have been at least four deaths today amid large rallies in Alexandria and
Cairo. The central demands of the original uprising against Mubarak in 2011 have
not been met – particularly an end to rampant police brutality and the
suppression of political dissent. In recent months the interim military
government has jailed activists and journalists on spurious terrorism charges,
shut newspapers, and fostered a hyper-nationalistic and xenophobic climate
through government media outlets.
The Muslim Brotherhood is, in fact, feared
by millions of Egyptians, but the decision to outlaw the movement as a terrorist
group has left the country's largest and best organized political movement with
no legitimate way to press its demands at the ballot box.
Long ago the Brotherhood formally renounced
violence, and was encouraged to participate in politics by the promise that it
would be their route to power. But when that day came – they won the first free
parliamentary elections in generations in Egypt and Morsi narrowly won the
country's first ever free presidential election – the movement's time in power
was short.
Now the movement's only outlet is the
politics of the street and, perhaps, a return to political violence.
Meanwhile the past three years of political
turmoil and street violence have badly damaged a national economy that was on
life support to begin with. Though vast infusions of cash from Saudi Arabia and
other Gulf monarchies, which were horrified by the Brotherhood's victory at the
ballot box, are helping to pay for the subsidized bread that millions of
Egyptians rely on and are helping to shore up the Egyptian pound, there is as
yet no prospect for economic renewal. The country's foreign currency reserves
remain under $18 billion – about half of what they were before protests broke
out against Mubarak – and the pound remains under pressure, which is helping to
drive up inflation.
The Constitution contains no solutions to
Egypt's current problems, nor is the constant fulminating against foreign plots
and enemies on the radio and television talk shows doing Egypt any good. The
army is currently in the political driver's seat, with growing momentum for army
chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has become a figure for outpourings of love
and respect from TV pundits and average Egyptians alike, to be the country's
next president.
But rebooting the Mubarak-era status quo
will not be easy, and will come in the face of an Egyptian public that's
developed a taste for mass protest.
A new Constitution settles none of this.
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http://news.yahoo.com/does-egypt-39-39-yes-39-vote-constitutional-173211102.html
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