Mursi Shows Retreat on Referendum, Protesters Surround Palace

Local Editor

Egypt postponed the start of early voting on a disputed draft constitution Friday, signaling an attempt by President Mohammad Mursi's government to back down and give room for negotiations with the opposition.

This comes as tens of thousands of opposition protesters surged around Mursi's palace in Cairo after breaking through barbed wire barricades and climbed onto army tanks guarding the premises.
"The people want the downfall of the regime" and "Leave, leave," they chanted, employing slogans used in the uprising that toppled Mursi's predecessor Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.
Meanwhile, Vice President Mahmoud Mekky announced Mursi would be ready to postpone an election on a draft constitution opposed by the liberal opposition if it could be done in a way to avoid a legal challenge.

One of the demands of Mursi's opponents is that he scrap the referendum on a constitution that he pushed through a drafting assembly dominated by Mursi's Brother Hood and then said would go to a vote on Dec. 15.
The head of Egypt's election committee also said the planned voting of Egyptians who live abroad on the constitution has been postponed, signaling a possible attempt by Mursi to allow room for talks with the opposition.
The weeklong expatriate voting, which had been due to begin Saturday, will start Wednesday instead.
Opposition leaders earlier rejected a national dialogue proposed by the president as a way out of a crisis that has polarized the nation and provoked deadly street clashes.

In parallel, Mursi's supporters who had obeyed a military order for demonstrators to leave the palace environs, held funerals Friday at Cairo's al-Azhar Mosque for six Mursi partisans who were among the dead.
On the political level, Mursi refused to retract a Nov. 22 decree in which he assumed sweeping powers or cancel a referendum next week on the constitution. Instead, the president called for a dialogue at his office Saturday to chart a way forward for Egypt after the referendum, an idea that the opposition leaders rebuffed.

A leader of the main opposition coalition said it would not join Mursi's dialogue: "The National Salvation Front is not taking part in the dialogue," said Ahmad Said.The Front's coordinator, Mohamed al-Baradei, a Nobel peace laureate, urged "national forces" to shun what he called an offer based on "arm-twisting and imposition of a fait accompli."

In response, Murad Ali, spokesman of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, said opposition reactions were sad: "What exit to this crisis do they have other than dialogue?" he asked.

Source: News agencies, Edited by moqawama.org