CAIRO: Egyptians voted for a third and final day Monday on constitutional changes that could keep President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in power until 2030, amid reports of people actively being encouraged to go the polls.
El-Sisi, who become president in 2014 and was re-elected in 2018 after eliminating all serious political competitors, is widely expected to win backing for the proposed amendments.
The sweeping changes would extend his current term until 2024 and would also give him the right to stand for another six-year term.
Other controversial amendments on the ballot include boosting his control over the judiciary and giving the military even greater influence in Egyptian political life.
AFP correspondents saw pro-El-Sisi volunteers handing out boxed meals at several polling stations in Cairo to voters after they had cast their ballots.
The parcels contained staples such as oil, rice, pasta and sugar.
Human Rights Watch has criticized the “grossly unfree, rights-abusive environment” of the vote, where the ‘No’ campaign has been effectively muzzled.
Ahmed Badawy, an engineer and youth activist with two political parties, wrote on Twitter on Sunday that he had been arrested, using the widely used hashtag “Go down, say No.”
He posted a picture of himself earlier holding a red placard in an upmarket suburb of Cairo with the text “No, to the constitutional changes.”
“He didn’t commit any crimes. He was expressing his views in a peaceful manner,” Badawy’s lawyer Mohamed Al-Baqer told AFP.
Badawy is detained in a police station but the family have received no official notification from the authorities, Baqer said.
In Imbaba, a working-class suburb hugging the Nile, an eyewitness on Monday told AFP of seeing street vendors being forcefully loaded onto buses to go vote.
On the first day of the referendum, some voters told AFP their employers had encouraged them to vote “Yes” and transported them to polling stations in company buses.
In their initial report, an international observer team said “there were no hurdles to voting.”
Egypt’s state-affiliated foreign media body on Sunday denounced instances of critical international coverage.
The referendum also proposes other changes to the five-year-old constitution, including creating a second parliamentary chamber and a quota ensuring at least 25 percent of lawmakers are women.
The final results will be announced on April 27.
Final day of Egyptian referendum to extend El-Sisi’s rule
Final day of Egyptian referendum to extend El-Sisi’s rule
- El-Sisi is widely expected to win backing for the proposed amendments
- The sweeping changes would extend his current term until 2024 and would also give him the right to stand for another six-year term
Katz orders West Bank raid after deadly attack in Israel
- Friday’s stabbing and car-ramming attack in northern Israel triggered the minister’s action
JERUSALEM: Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz on Friday ordered the military to launch an operation in the village of Qabatiya in the occupied West Bank after it emerged that a Palestinian who killed two people came from there.
The minister instructed the Israeli forces to “act forcefully and immediately against the village of Qabatiya, from which the murderous terrorist emerged, in order to locate and thwart every terrorist and strike the village’s terror infrastructure,” Katz’s office said in a statement.
“Anyone who aids terrorism or sponsors and backs it will pay the full price,” it added.
BACKGROUND
Friday’s attack comes just days after Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian teenager in the Qabatiya area.
The military said in a separate statement that it was preparing to begin an operation in Qabatiya in the northern West Bank, which has seen repeated violent incidents.
Friday’s stabbing and car-ramming attack in northern Israel triggered the minister’s action.
The assault came a day after an Israeli military reservist dressed in civilian clothes rammed his vehicle into a Palestinian man in the West Bank, where violence has surged since the war in Gaza began.
“Preliminary investigation indicates this was a rolling terror attack that began in the city of Beit Shean, where a pedestrian was run over,” Israeli police said in a statement about Friday’s attack, adding that the victim was a 68-year-old man.
“Later, a young woman was stabbed near Road 71, and the suspect was ultimately engaged with gunfire near Maonot Junction in Afula following intervention by a civilian bystander,” it said, adding that the attacker was taken to hospital.
Both victims succumbed to the injuries, Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency services said in a statement.
MDA also reported that a 16-year-old was slightly injured when “hit by a vehicle.
The Israeli military said the attacker had “infiltrated into Israeli territory several days ago.”
President Isaac Herzog condemned the attack.
Friday’s attack comes just days after Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian teenager in the Qabatiya area.
The military has launched an investigation into the incident after footage emerged showing the teenager not posing any threat or throwing anything at soldiers who shot him.
The attack on Friday also came a day after an Israeli military reservist dressed in civilian clothes rammed his vehicle into a Palestinian man in the
West Bank.
In videos on social media purporting to show that incident, the victim is seen praying by the roadside when the soldier rams him with his vehicle.
