Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya: Egypt's Constitutional Referendum!

Did President Morsi Hijack Democracy? President Morsi created a new constitution for Egypt on December 26, 2012. Prior to this, Morsi was forced by massive street protests in Egypt to rescind an executive decree, that granted him sweeping presidential powers. His opponents called it an empty gesture, as Morsi's government rolled out the tanks, and brought out the Egyptian military from their barracks into the streets. Opponents of Morsi and the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood accused him and his Freedom and Justice Party, of playing a game to stupefy Egyptians by consistently making propositions, then withdrawing them, and then making them again to create confusion. After calling out the military, Morsis government would then rush a constitutional referendum forward, that would guarantee him even more powers. The constitutional changes in Egypt have divided its society. Several Muslim Brotherhood offices have even been stormed by large groups of angry protesters. In what appeared to be a turning back of the clock to the Mubarak regime's use of brute force, reports of casualties caused by the attacks on protesters and activists were far spread. Morsis supporters and Egyptian security forces, would fight in the streets across Egypt with those opposing the new constitution. A peaceful sit in of activists in front of the presidential palace in Cairo even ended in violence and death as fighting broke out. So does Egypt's new constitution enjoy popular support? In the end, Morsi's new constitution appears to have become victorious. The way numerical information or data is presented or inferred, however, can be very misleading. In many cases, the data about the referendum was very selectively presented. An examination of the numbers through some elementary statistical data analyses says a lot about the support that the new constitution received from Egyptian society, and provides an important contextual answer to the question being posed. The new constitution won by a 63.8% approval of yes. This is very misleading, when the level of participation is used to generate further data. Only 32.9% of eligible voters cast their ballots for the election, and most important the new constitution was approved with the support of 20.9% of eligible voters.