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By Yasmine Saleh and Marwa Awad
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptians flocked to the polls on Saturday for the first time since President Hosni Mubarak was toppled to vote in a referendum on political reform marred by an attack on presidential candidate...
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Egyptians vote for reform
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Egyptian cast their vote during a national referendum at a school in Cairo March 19, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Asmaa Waguih
By Yasmine Saleh and Marwa Awad
CAIRO |
Sun Mar 20, 2011 3:14am EDT
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptians flocked to the polls on Saturday for the first time since President Hosni Mubarak was toppled to vote in a referendum on political reform marred by an attack on presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei.
Youths pushed and hurled missiles at the former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog as he tried to vote in the constitutional referendum which will determine how quickly Egypt can hold elections.
"We don't want you, we don't want you," chanted the crowd of about 60, many of them teenagers.
"I went to vote with my family and I was attacked by organized thugs," ElBaradei wrote on Twitter. "Top figures of Mubarak's regime still at large and undermining the revolution," he said.
Rocks thrown at ElBaradei's car smashed its rear window as he fled the crowd, a Reuters witness said. He was unable to vote at the Cairo polling station and went elsewhere to cast his ballot.
"They came out of nowhere. They were not in line to vote. They started chanting in unison 'We don't want you' all of a sudden. It looks like it was coordinated," said Sameh Fathi, 25, who had been waiting in line to vote.
Observers said there appeared to have been an unprecedented turnout for the first Egyptian ballot in living memory whose outcome was not known in advance.
"I'm 53 and I have never voted before because they were all rigged," said Ahmed al-Hami, one of close to 100 people waiting in line to vote at a polling station in a suburb south of Cairo. "Now I am voting for freedom," he said.
LOOMING ELECTIONS
Voters were being asked to approve or reject proposed reforms drafted by a judicial committee appointed by the country's military rulers, who have pledged to hold early elections.
They took power from Mubarak when he was forced from office on February 11 by an uprising that continues to reverberate across the Arab world.
The referendum has divided Egyptians between those who say the constitution needs to be completely rewritten and others who argue amendments will suffice for now.
"Judging from what I saw in many stations, the turnout will range between 60 and 70 percent which is unprecedented," Gamal Eid, a monitor, said. "We have not seen any forgery today. What we saw was a true will to make the voting process fair."
The Muslim Brotherhood, a well organized Islamist group, has backed the amendments, setting it at odds with secular groups and reform advocates including ElBaradei and Arab League chief Amr Moussa, who is also a presidential candidate.
Remnants of Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) have also said they support the amendments. Reformists see members of the party as one threat to the deep changes they are seeking.
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