CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptians voted 77% in favour of the military's plans for a swift return to civilian rule after mass protests ousted president Hosni Mubarak last month, official results showed on Sunday.
More than 14 million Egyptians, or 77.2% of those who voted, approved the constitutional amendments intended to guide the Arab world's most populous nation through new presidential and parliamentary elections within six months, organising commission chairman Mohammed Attiya said.
Four million, or 22.8%, said "no," Attiya told a news conference.
A total of 41% or 18.5 million of the estimated 45 million eligible voters turned out on Saturday to seize their first taste of democracy, after 18 days of demonstrations ended Mubarak's 30 years of authoritarian rule, he added.
The turnout for Mubarak-era elections was always minuscule as none was genuinely competitive and in any case nobody had any faith their vote would count amid widespread rigging and fraud.
The referendum on the limited changes to the constitution inherited from the Mubarak regime had been bitterly fought.
The changes approved are by themselves uncontroversial, although critics argued they did not go far enough in overhauling the Mubarak-era charter, which they said needed to be completely rewritten.
The president will serve a maximum of two four-year terms and will no longer have the power to refer civilians to the military courts.
The state of emergency which has governed Egyptian life for decades will be able to be imposed for just six months without endorsement in a popular referendum.
The youth groups which spearheaded the protest movement joined a host of secular political parties and opposition figures in calling for a "no" vote, saying the timetable being set by the military was too tight for new movements to organise at grass-roots level.
The military council, which took over when Mubarak quit on February 11, gave an appointed panel of experts just 10 days to draw up the amendments put to Saturday's referendum, which was held only five weeks after Mubarak's ouster.
The activists' umbrella group, the Coalition of the Youth of the Revolution, had organised a rally for a "no" vote on the eve of the referendum, which brought thousands of people back to Cairo's Tahrir Square, focal point of the protests against Mubarak.
But the activists were gracious in defeat, calling on their Facebook page for supporters to accept the verdict.
"We are now entering a new phase in which Egyptians are going to decide on the shape of their new state for decades to come," the posting said.
"That's why, as a matter of urgency, we need to stop trading accusations in order to resume work so that we can realise the goals of the revolution in the manner chosen by the people.
"We call on members of this Facebook page to respect the will and choice of the people after this democratic exercise which we regard as an historic departure in Egyptian political life."
The Muslim Brotherhood, which had thrown its huge influence and grassroots organisation behind a "yes" vote, hailed the outcome but rejected accusations that it was the victor of the vote as it would enter elections as Egypt's most effective political force.
"No, it's a victory for the Egyptian people," said Essam al-Aryan, spokesman of the Islamist group, which was outlawed although generally tolerated under Mubarak's ousted regime.
"We are going to turn a page and enter a new phase."
Touring Tahrir Square on Sunday, senior US Senator John Kerry described the fact that Egyptians had finally taken part in a vote in which the outcome was not known in advance as "a very good sign for the steps ahead."
The Brotherhood spokesman denied that the referendum campaign had exacerbated sectarian divisions in Egypt, which has a Coptic Christian minority that makes up as much as 10 percent of the population.
Coptic leaders had called for a "no" vote after not a single representative of the community was named to the panel of experts appointed by the military. Confessional violence also killed 13 people in south Cairo earlier this month.
"There is no divide. There were some Muslims who voted 'yes' and others who voted 'no,' just as there were some Christians who voted 'yes' and others who voted 'no.' The differences are political, not religious," said Aryan.
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