From left: Opposition members of National Salvation Front Hamdeen Sabahi, Amr Hamzawy, Abdel Gelil Mostafa, Osama Ghazaly Harb, George Ishak and Hussen Abdel Ghaney at a joint press conference in Cairo, yesterday.
CAIRO: Egypt’s opposition coalition said yesterday it was moving towards forming a single political party to challenge Islamists, whose more disciplined ranks have dominated the ballot box since last year’s revolution.
Members of the opposition National Salvation Front, whose differences have split the non-Islamist vote, pledged to keep up the pressure on President Mohammed Mursi, including through peaceful protests.
Liberals, socialists and other factions that united under the banner of the Front campaigned unsuccessfully for a “no” vote in a referendum on a new constitution which, according to an unofficial tally by Mursi’s Islamist backers yesterday, secured 64 percent approval on turnout of about a third of the 51 million eligible voters.
“The Front is very cohesive and the Front is in agreement that it will lead all battles together,” Mohamed Abul Ghar, head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party and a leading member of the Front, told a news conference after the referendum.
“Not only that, but the parties inside the Front have taken advanced steps to form a big party inside the Front,” he said.
A statement from the Front said it had learnt “useful lessons” during the referendum. But it will have little time to organise, as a parliamentary election is due to be held in about two months.
Votes since the overthrow of autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 suggest Islamist support has slipped, but Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood is a potent political force with a grassroots network - built up over decades, even when it was repressed - that liberals cannot yet match.
The opposition says the constitution, passed after weeks of protests and violence, favours Islamists and ignores the rights of Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population, and women. They say it will split the country and lead to more unrest.
“The majority is not big and the minority is not small,” liberal politician Amr Hamzawy said, adding that the Front would use “all peaceful, democratic means” to challenge the constitution and make their voices heard.
George Ishak, another Front figure, said: “The revolution continues and we will resist with all peaceful means to bring down this unjust constitution.” Other members said discussions about fighting the parliamentary poll as a single unit were continuing and it was too early to talk of details such as how candidates would be fielded in different constituencies.
Front members include Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, who leads the Constitution Party, and leftist Hamdeen Sabahy, founder of the Popular Current movement.
Both groups have been prominent in demonstrations against Mursi’s rule and his drive to fast-track the constitution through an Islamist-dominated drafting assembly, which opponents quit in protest.
Sabahy said the referendum showed “this constitution has no national consensus.” Islamists dismissed such criticism, saying the result was a clear majority and the constitution was a fair and essential step to advance Egypt’s democratic transition.
Opposition said it will appeal a referendum seen as voting in a new constitution backed by ruling Islamists, and vowed to keep up a struggle that has spawned weeks of protests and instability.
Polling “fraud and violations” skewed the results of the two-stage referendum, the final leg of which was held on Saturday, the National Salvation Front charged.
“We are asking the (electoral) commission to investigate the irregularities before announcing official results,” a Front member, Amr Hamzawy, told a Cairo news conference. “The referendum is not the end of the road. It is only one battle,” said another member, Abdel Ghaffar Shokr, reading from a Front statement. “We will continue the fight for the Egyptian people.”
Germany immediately backed the call for a transparent investigation into the results. Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said: “The new constitution can only meet with acceptance if the process of its adoption is beyond reproach.”
But Westerwelle said it was “not the power of the street but rather the spirit of compromise and tolerance that should determine the way forward for Egypt.” Egyptian state media and President Mohammed Mursi’s supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood said the constitution was passed with the support of nearly two-thirds of voters, based on unofficial tallies.
A member of the national electoral commission, Mohamed el-Tanobly, said that “no official date has been fixed” for the publication of the final referendum results. The state news agency Mena had reported they would be released today.
Opposition to the charter have fuelled demonstrations for the past month, some of them violent, such as clashes that wounded 62 people in Egypt’s second city of Alexandria on Friday, the day before the final round of voting.
AFP/Reuters
