Uneasiness as Egypt awaits referendum results

CAIRO: Egypt yesterday was awaiting official results of a referendum on a new constitution reportedly backed by two-thirds of voters but which the opposition alleged was not fair.
No official date has been fixed for the final polling figures, a member of the electoral commission, Mohamed El-Tanobly, said.
“We are examining the complaints and we will tally the results,” he said, adding that all the alleged irregularities would be studied, so that the referendum “really reflects the will of the Egyptian people.”
President Muhammad Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood and state media say an unofficial tally shows 64 percent of ballots backed the new charter after a staggered referendum held Dec. 15 and 22. If confirmed, the text would be adopted and new legislative elections would have to be called within two months.
But the National Salvation Front opposition coalition claimed numerous instances of polling “fraud and violations” and is demanding the electoral commission investigate before issuing its official figures.
“The referendum is not the end of the road. It is only one battle,” the Front said. “We will continue the fight for the Egyptian people.”
“I’m convinced this constitution will have negative repercussions on us and on all the country,” said Marlene, a 35-year-old saleswoman in the city of Minya, in a poor rural area on the Nile south of Cairo with a big Christian minority. She said she did not bother to vote “because of polling fraud” in the December 15 first round of the referendum.
Merzek, a 29-year-old Health Ministry employee who also refused to give his last name, said the conservatives “say they want to apply Shariah even to Christians. If that happens, we can’t say no, but I will stay in my country because, if we go, Egypt is finished.” His wife, Mariane, 25, added: “If they try to force the head scarf on us, I will certainly not wear it.”
Germany is echoing the call for an investigation into the alleged voting fraud, saying the new constitution can only be seen as valid “if the process of its adoption is beyond reproach.”
US Republican chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the US House of Representatives, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, called the vote “a defeat for the Egyptian people” at the hands of “an Islamic dictatorship.”
Only Iran welcomed the referendum. It said it promoted “progressive, Islamic and revolutionary goals” in Egypt.