The Arabist

The Arabist

By Issandr El Amrani and friends.

Referendum Results In

Tonight, it has been reported by the BBC that yesterday's referendum passed with 83-percent of the votes being "Yes."

According to the Egyptian state 16.4 million of the 32 million (54-percent) eligible voters turned out nation-wide.

UPDATE:

Reuters is reporting that the initial electoral returns from the first two provinces showed that referendum was approved by 98-percent.

Hence, it was the remaining 24 governateswhere all the "NO" votes came from - yeah right!

ALSO:

I had brunch with the scholar this morning. We were talking about the turnout and the 83-percent YES margin. Both of us felt it was manipulated to lower it. After all, as the scholar put it, that would mean "around 3 million people turned up to vote 'NO'." Actually, it would have been 2.77 million people voting NO.

Based on the empirical finding we collected, this seems impossible. That said, however, we were in Cairo and not outside, where the government claims the polls were more active.

But who are those 2.77 million naughty citizens voting no?

Al-Masri al-Youm spoke with one voter who said no to changing the constitution. Why?

Well, according to this guy, he did not want to change the system because he wants Hosni Mubarak and only Hosni Mubarak forever.

He did his part by trying to make sure there won't be any democratic slips in Masr. After all, you never know what happens when you open-up the system.