Egyptian human rights groups called on Egypt's military rulers on Thursday to implement a new constitution before conducting parliamentary and presidential elections. The call came one day after Tunisia's interim government decided to delay elections by three months, until 23 October, in order to have more time to ensure that the elections would be free and transparent. The statement was signed by eight human rights organizations and released by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. The rights groups said in a statement that a “new regime must take its place, and its institutions and the relationships between them must be based on a new constitution.” “This constitution must be drafted first, rather than building the institutions of the new order in accordance with the constitutional rules of the old regime,” the statement said. Presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei called last month for the drafting of a new permanent constitution before the upcoming parliamentary elections, currently slated for September. Other secular groups later backed the call. ElBaradei argued, like the rights groups in today's statement, that parliamentary and presidential elections should follow a new constitution, not the other way around. Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) has declared that a new constitution will be written by a committee selected by the next elected parliament. Secular forces fear that the next parliament could be dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, which would draft a constitution favoring Islamic sharia. “The insistence on putting the cart before the horse — that is, electing a parliament based on the rules of the old regime's constitution before preparing a constitution for the new order — will allow parties that win parliamentary and presidential elections to manage the drafting of the constitution in accordance with their own narrow interests,” the statement said. The Brotherhood has dismissed calls for drafting a new constitution ahead of elections, saying that such a step would make the transitional period longer, which would contradict the outcome of a national referendum held March. On 19 March, Egypt conducted its first post-Mubarak poll, in which 77.2 percent of those taking part backed a set of nine constitutional amendments proposed by the military. The human rights groups, however, see other dangers in not having a new constitution before elections. “The current course and its timetable threaten to lead the country into a longer period of instability, will delay the army's return to the barracks, and will have negative consequences for the Egyptian economy,” argued the statement. “The subject of the referendum was limited to nine articles of the 1971 Constitution, after which the SCAF surprised both supporters and opponents of the amendments by abolishing the 1971 Constitution altogether… and merging the amendments into a constitutional declaration composed of 63 articles,” said the statement.
