Final draft of Egypt’s constitution ‘ready,’ will be put to vote Thursday

A final draft of Egypt’s new constitution would be finished on Wednesday and would be put to a vote on Thursday.

“We will start now and finish today, God willing,” Hossam el-Gheriyani, the assembly speaker, said at the start of a meeting of the constitutional assembly in Cairo.

In the same vain, a presidential source told Reuters on Wednesday that Egypt's President Mohammed Mursi will address the nation on Thursday on matters including the decree he issued last week and the street protests that erupted afterwards.

“The President will address the nation on state TV on Thursday evening and will speak about the constitutional decree and why it was issued as well as the events that ensued afterwards,” the source told Reuters.

Mursi had just last week given the constituent assembly, boycotted by liberals and Christians, an additional two months until February to complete its work.

But as protests mounted over his decision to grant himself sweeping powers until the text is ratified in a referendum, the panel wrapped up its deliberations and readied for a vote on the text to be put to voters, panel chief Ahmed Darrag said.

“The discussions over the draft of the constitution will be finished today, to be followed by voting,” Darrag said in remarks carried by the official MENA news agency.

MENA reported that the panel would vote on the draft on Thursday morning. It will subsequently be put to a referendum.

The head of the Islamist-dominated panel, Hossam al-Gheriani, urged the liberal, leftist and Coptic members who walked out to “come back and finish the discussion on Thursday.”

“Tomorrow will be a great day,” Gheriani said.

The surprise move came in the face of deep rifts over the constituent assembly which critics have slammed for failing to represent all Egyptians.

Anger over the document was exacerbated following a decree by Mursi granting himself sweeping powers and barring the courts from dissolving the panel.

The Supreme Constitutional Court had been due to review the legality of the drafting committee on Sunday, but its fate hangs in the balance amid the constitutional vacuum created by Mursi's decree.

Human rights groups have criticized the move to rush through the constitution.

“This is not a healthy moment to be pushing through a constitution because this is an extremely divisive moment,” Human Rights Watch Egypt director Heba Morayef told AFP.

“Human rights groups have very serious concerns about some of the rights protections in the latest drafts we've seen,” she said.

Egypt's highest court of appeal has gone on strike over Mursi's decree putting his decisions beyond judicial scrutiny and protesters have flocked back to Cairo's Tahrir Square, epicentre of the protest movement that toppled Mubarak in February 2011.

Clashes between police and protesters raged on Wednesday with the two sides exchanging volleys of tear gas canisters and stones.

The outskirts of the square have seen sporadic skirmishes for nine days since a protest was begun to mark the one-year anniversary of deadly confrontations with police in the same area.

Clashes also raged through Tuesday night between supporters and opponents of Mursi in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla and the canal city of Port Said.

In Mahalla, 132 people were injured while 27 were hurt in Port Said, medical sources told AFP. According to a security official, calm in both towns had been restored by early on Wednesday.

Mursi's decree helped consolidate the long-divided opposition, with former U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei and ex-Arab League chief Amr Moussa uniting with former presidential candidates in the face of Mursi and the powerful Muslim Brotherhood, on whose ticket the president ran for office.

Amr Moussa told Reuters an effort by Egypt’s constitutional assembly to finish the draft on Wednesday did not make sense because of widespread anger with the Islamist-dominated body.

“This is nonsensical and one of the steps that shouldn’t be taken, given the background of anger and resentment to the current constitutional assembly,”
Moussa said.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s ruling Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) --the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm-- denied earlier on Friday that President Mursi would retract the recent constitutional declaration, saying it will only remain until a new constitution is ratified, the FJP’s Vice Chairman Essam al-Erian told Al Arabiya.

The FJP said that Mursi's decree is temporary, valid only until a new constitution is in place, and that the measures are aimed at speeding up a seemingly endless transition.

U.S. officials said Washington was closely following the drama unfolding in Egypt, with a warning that Cairo could put vast amounts of international aid at stake if it veers off the democratic course.

But the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday said Egypt can still get its $4.8 billion loan, agreed last week, despite the turmoil as long as there is “no major change” in its reform commitments.