Two killed in clashes as Egypt awaits poll result

Police arrest a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood during clashes in Cairo yesterday.

AFP/Cairo

Clashes between Egyptian police and Islamists killed at least two people yesterday, as the country awaited results of a constitutional referendum billed as a popular endorsement of president Mohamed Mursi’s overthrow.

Clashes between Mursi’s Islamist supporters and teargas-firing police were reported in several cities, security officials said, a day before the referendum’s results were expected.

The interim authorities trumpeted the Tuesday and Wednesday poll as a chance for voters to show their support for the army’s overthrow in July, after massive street protests, of Egypt’s first freely elected president.

Flagship state-owned daily Al Ahram hailed a 98% vote in support of the new charter drafted to replace the Islamist-inspired one adopted under Mursi in 2012.

The Islamists, who boycotted the vote, described it as a farce and predicted it would culminate in the sort of massive electoral fraud that characterised Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade rule, ended by the Arab Spring uprising of 2011.

A coalition led by Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood called for further protests, such as the rallies yesterday that turned violent in several cities.

One man was killed in Cairo and another in clashes in Fayoum, southwest of the capital, the health ministry said.

In Cairo’s Alf Maskan area, demonstrators aimed fireworks at police, who scattered for cover when they heard bursts of automatic gunfire from the protesters’ side.

A policeman fired an assault rifle in the protesters’ direction.

The government hoped a large turnout among Egypt’s 53mn registered voters would bolster its democratic credentials and further marginalise the Islamists.

Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the man who toppled Mursi, was closely monitoring that as an indicator of support for a presidential bid later this year, military officials said.

Preliminary tallies reported by state news agency Mena suggested turnout had reached 39% in most provinces, sharply up on 33% registered in the Mursi-era referendum just over a year ago.

The government said the vote showed support for Mursi’s overthrow.

“This was also a referendum on June 30,” said government spokesman Hany Salah, referring to the day when millions of protesters took to the streets demanding that the president resign.

The run-up to the vote was marred by arrests of activists who campaigned against the constitution.

“There was no real opportunity for those opposed to the government’s road map or the proposed constitution to dissent,” said monitoring group Democracy International, which observed the referendum.

The group said its monitors witnessed security forces and campaigning material inside polling stations, but there was “no evidence that such problems substantially affected the outcome of this referendum”.

The government will still have to contend with near daily protests and a militant campaign in the restive Sinai that has killed scores of policemen and soldiers.

For the second time in a month, suspected militants in the peninsula blew up yesterday a gas pipeline that feeds into an industrial zone.