Egypt's constitutional referendum, in which a public poll will determine the future of proposed amendments to the 2012 constitution, will take place in late January 2014, according to interim Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi. The prime minister made his comments on Monday at an investment conference in Cairo, according to state-owned Al-Ahram. If the referendum were to take place in the timeframe El-Beblawi cited, it would be held later than scheduled according to the 8 July constitutional declaration that was issued by interim President Adly Mansour. The declaration dictated that after 15 days of drafting by the Committee of Experts, the Constitutional Assembly would be given a maximum of 60 days to approve the proposed amendments, time which it provided for social dialogue. The interim president is then expected to present the amendments in a referendum within 30 days of receiving them. In a Monday press conference the Supreme Electoral Commission (SEC) announced that a total of 108 organisations had applied to monitor voting, and that the commission had accepted 67 local organisations and six international ones that met the conditions set by the body that oversees referendums and elections. Spokesman for the commission Hisham Mokhtar stressed that the SEC was the only body responsible for setting a date for the referendum and that it would make the final announcement concerning the timing for it. Mokhtar added that a total of 673,000 Egyptians had registered to vote in the upcoming poll. The door to registering abroad opened last month. He added that the SEC was working to update its voting database and unveiled an advertisement campaign calling on Egyptians to take part in the referendum.
