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Friday of Refusing the Constitutional Amendments

The National Association for Change and the Popular Parliament and the Revolution Support Front call upon the masses of the free Egyptian people, across the spectrum, [to show up] this Friday in the public squares, and its forefront Tahrir Square, to announce the refusal to amend some of the articles of the old constitution (the 1971 constitution). These amendments, which were made by the legal committee, carry in their details much that undermines many of their positive aspects.

The following are the most important defects of the constitutional amendments:

  1. The amendments restore recognition to the old constitution, which was overturned with the removal of the previous president.
  2. The old constitution includes 39 articles that facilitate the return of authoritarianism, were the new president, immediately after his election, to want to take back the gains of the revolution and prepare a system dictatorship that would make him a ruler with divine authority.
  3. They give the president the power to appoint his vice president after his election, which could lead to the appointment of one of presidents’ sons or one of his relatives as the vice president.
  4. These amendments grant the members of the body of the state judges the power to supervise elections and count votes. They defend the government and the administrative prosecution. They are subordinate to the Minister of Justice, who represents the executive power. This results in a lack of independence and subordination to the power of the Minister of Justice.
  5. They preserve the Shura Council despite its lack of importance and left it to the next president to appoint a third of its members, thereby making it subservient to him.
  6. The Parliament, which will be elected this July, 2011, and be based on the current amendments, will not express the new powers of the revolution and their passion for freedom, justice and competence. It will, instead, express the spurious 50 percent in the name of the laborers and peasants. It will not [really] represent them and will be limited only to the old parties and groups including the National Democratic Party that corrupted political life.

 

Hence the National Association for Change and all the powers of the revolution participating in it invite every Egyptian to go to the referendum ballot and vote to refuse amending the dilapidated ‘71 constitution or its restoration at the expense of the people that sacrificed with the lives of their martyrs and the blood of their sons for the sake of a bright future.

The better—and only—choice for all of Egypt is the refusal to amend the old constitution with its old and new defects and to insist on a new constitution that is in sync with the demands of the revolution. [A new constitution] established by a constituent assembly rather than tinkering with the old dilapidated constitution.

For the new constitution is the true guarantee of realizing freedom and dignity and social justice.

The National Association for Change The Popular Parliament The Revolution Support Front

Cairo on March 14, 2011.

Email: admin@gmail.com Website: www.misrdt.com

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Translated by Yasmeen Mekaway.

Translation reviewed by Elias Saba.

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