Egypt is bracing for another day of street protests over President Mohamed Mursi’s plans to vote on a new constitution.
Police have surrounded Tahrir Square in central Cairo for the first time since protests started in the area since November 23, following a decree by the Islamist President to award himself sweeping temporary powers.
Meanwhile, unknown assailants fired at demonstrators at Tahrir Square injuring nine people. The attackers also hurled petrol bombs at the protesters causing a small fire, said witnesses.
Awakened by the noise, the protesters started chanting: “The people want the downfall of the regime.”
According to news agencies, Leftists, liberals and other opposition groups have called for marches to the Presidential palace in the afternoon to protest against the hastily arranged referendum on a new constitution planned for Saturday, which they say is polarizing the country.
Islamists, who dominated the body that drew up the constitution, have urged their followers to turn out “in millions” the same day in a show of support for the President and for a referendum they feel sure of winning and that critics say could put Egypt in a religious straitjacket.
Seven people were killed and hundreds wounded last week in clashes between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and opponents besieging Mursi’s graffiti-daubed Presidential palace.
The elite Republican Guard has yet to use force to keep protesters away from the palace, now ringed with tanks, barbed wire and concrete barricades, but a decree issued by Mursi late on Sunday gives the armed forces the power to arrest civilians during the referendum and until the announcement of the results.
Leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahy, one of the most prominent members of the National Salvation Front opposition coalition, said Mursi was driving a wedge between Egyptians and destroying prospects for consensus.
“The road Mohamed Mursi is taking now does not create the possibility for national consensus,” said Sabahy. If the constitution was passed, he said: “Egypt will continue in this really charged state. It is certain that this constitution is driving us to more political polarization.”
As well as pushing the early referendum, Mursi has angered opponents by taking sweeping temporary powers he said were necessary to secure the country’s transition to stability after a popular uprising overthrew autocratic former president Hosni Mubarak 22 months ago.
