This is a message to the youth of Egypt and to the forces of its revolution. You have a historic moment ahead of you on Saturday. It is historic both because you have not had a free vote in your lifetimes but also because it will make history, whichever way you vote. This should make you think more carefully about your choice in the referendum than just the last poster you saw or person you spoke to.
On January 25th you started a process even if you couldn’t see the end. You overthrew your president and demanded a whole new system, democracy. I write to you as a member of one of the oldest democracies in the world: Great Britain. Democracy is an institution that is built, one floor at a time and it is made for all groups in society. We didn’t become a democracy over night; it took us hundreds of years of many attempts and reforms. You will do it much quicker but you must not rush. This is the biggest threat to Egyptian democracy.
Everyone knows that Egypt needs a whole new constitution. The constitutional amendments that you vote on will give you that. The question is whether you want the new constitution before or after you vote for a President and Parliament. I encourage you to vote ‘yes’ on Saturday so that the people you vote for, who represent you write your constitution. So that whomever you vote for will have a voice and influence over what your new system will look like.
Voting ‘yes’ would mean three main things:
- Egypt’s President will only serve for 4 years with a maximum of 2 terms.
- Forming Political Parties will be easier.
- The next Parliament and Shura Council will create a committee to write a whole new constitution.
Many of you are worried that voting ‘yes’ now will be the end of the process, that the new constitution will never be written and that the revolution will be over. You live in a country where things are often promised but not done and where there is no trust in politicians. Many of you are not willing risk the whole revolution and path to freedom and will vote ‘no’. Then what happens?
Will you give a pen to Tantawi and ask him to write you a constitution? When he does, you will vote for it and people will say ‘no’ because they will feel it does not represent them. The religious will want more Sharia and the secular will want no religion in the state. The poor will want more benefits and the rich will want more business. The unions will want more for workers and so on… The protests will start again in Tahrir Square; only this time instead of being united everyone will want something else.
To vote ‘yes’ on Saturday is to take a risk. But you hold a part of that risk. If your government does not keep to the constitution and refuses to write a new one Tahrir Square is open- go there, unite and hold them to their promise. But the road to democracy has started and the next government will have to follow the new amendments when it gets voted in. I give you the amendment you will vote on in Arabic and English. Remember it, vote for it and hold your politicians to it:
يجتمع الأعضاء غير المعينين لأول مجلسي شعب و شورى تاليين لإعلان نتيجة الاستفتاء على تعديل الدستور لاختيار الجمعية التأسيسية المنوطبها إعداد مشروع الدستور الجديد خلال ستة اشهر من انتخابهم و ذلك كله وفقا لأحكام الفقرة الأخيرة من المادة 189.
“The Members of the Magles ElShaab and Shura Council will meet and subsequently announce the results of the constitutional ammendements: to select a constituent committee commissioned to prepare the new constitution within a year of its formation. It is therefore to be in accordance with other paragraphs from article 189.”
When you go to vote on Saturday remember that there are always reasons to say no. Look for one to say yes.
