CAIRO: The Supreme Constitutional Court is looking at a lawsuit filed by lawyer Mohsen Bahnasy accusing the referendum on the constitutional amendments that took place last March of being unconstitutional. Bahnasy s lawyers also accuse the changes that have been made to Articles 62 and 88 of the constitution which regulate citizens rights and procedures in voting for elections of being unconstitutional as they restrict freedom in elections and nominations. The defense also demanded that elections come under the authority of the judiciary board and not a general electoral committee as the new constitution dictates, reported Al-Masry Al-Youm. The results of the referendum indicated that 75.9 percent of Egyptians who voted in the referendum were in favor of the 34 constitutional amendments. Turnout for the referendum stood at 27.1 percent out of the 35 million-strong registered voters. But the opposition has questioned both the alleged voter turnout and the poll results. The percentage that the government announced is "unrealistic, Hamdy Hassan, an MP affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood told The Daily Star Egypt in a previous interview. "This percentage has never been reached before in any election, even in the People's Assembly elections, which have the highest participation rates, no turnout has ever exceeded 20 percent . So how can the referendum participation rate reach 27.1 percent? Hassan asked. "All monitors of the polling stations agreed that the participation rate was very low and hardly reached five percent, Hassan said. Civil rights activist Gamal Eid, director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, has also told The Daily Star Egypt in a previous interview that the participation rate did not exceed five percent, and that the referendum's only positive result was that it showed the success of the opposition forces and their influence on the public who boycotted the referendum.
