Morsi’s Concessions Fail to Quiet Egyptian Opponents

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Egyptian Republican guards stood in front of a barrier near the presidential palace in Cairo, as protesters demonstrated against President Morsi on Sunday.

CAIRO — The political crisis over Egypt's draft constitution hardened on both sides on Sunday, as President Mohamed Morsi prepared to deploy the army to safeguard balloting in a planned referendum on the new charter and his opponents called for more protests and a boycott to undermine the vote.

Thousands of demonstrators streamed toward the presidential palace for a fifth night of protests against Mr. Morsi and the proposed charter, and the president, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, formally issued an order asking the military to protect such "vital institutions" and to secure the vote.

With the decision to boycott the referendum, the opposition signaled that it had given up hope that it could defeat the draft charter at the polls, and had opted instead to try to undermine the referendum's legitimacy.

The call for new protests — with major demonstrations expected at the presidential palace again on Tuesday and Friday — ensures that questions about Egypt's national unity and stability will continue to overshadow debate about the specific contents of the charter. Although international experts who have studied the draft say it is hardly more religious than Egypt's old constitution, opponents say it fails to adequately protect individual rights from being constricted by a future Islamist majority in Parliament.

Over the past two weeks, hundreds of thousands of people have poured into the streets to oppose the charter, crowds have attacked 28 Muslim Brotherhood offices and the group's headquarters, and at least seven people have died in clashes between Islamist and secular political factions.

The opposition "rejects lending legitimacy to a referendum that will definitely lead to more sedition and division," said Sameh Ashour, a spokesman for a coalition that calls itself the National Salvation Front. Holding a referendum "in a state of seething and chaos," Mr. Ashour said, amounted to "a reckless and flagrant absence of responsibility, risking driving the country into violent confrontations that endanger its national security."

Whether to ask voters to vote no or to stay home has been the subject of heated debate in opposition circles in the week since Mr. Morsi announced the referendum, to be held on Saturday.

Now the question is whether opponents can translate the energy of the protests against the charter into more votes and seats in parliamentary elections that are expected to take place two months after the referendum.

Both sides acknowledge that President Morsi, who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood's political party, has hurt himself and his party politically with the act that first touched off the protests: a decree giving himself authoritarian powers and putting his decisions above the reach of judicial review until the new charter is passed. He suffered even more, they say, when the backlash against the decree and the new constitution led to a night of clashes between his Islamists supporters and their more secular opponents that left at least six dead and hundreds more injured.

Mr. Morsi surprised his critics after midnight on Sunday by withdrawing almost all the provisions of his decree, a step he said he took on the recommendation of about 40 politicians and thinkers he convened on Saturday for a "national dialogue" meant to resolve the crisis. Leading opposition figures were invited to take part, but nearly all declined; according to a list broadcast on state television, most of the attendees were Islamists of various stripes, and the only prominent secular politician on hand was the former presidential candidate Ayman Nour.

A spokesman for the group said at an authorized news conference that Mr. Morsi was issuing a new, more limited decree, giving immunity from judicial scrutiny only to his "constitutional declarations," a narrow if hazily defined category of presidential actions. Steps he took under the previous decree would also be protected, including dismissal of the public prosecutor, who was appointed under the ousted former president, Hosni Mubarak.

Through the spokesman for the "national dialogue" group, Mohamed Salim el-Awa, Mr. Morsi even signaled a willingness to allow his opponents and allies to negotiate a package of amendments to the constitution that all sides would agree to enact once the draft is approved.

But Mr. Morsi did not concede to the opposition's main demand: to postpone the referendum long enough for an overhaul of the draft.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the former diplomat who now acts as a coordinator of the secular opposition, was the first to fire back on Sunday, resorting again to the language of revolution.

Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from New York.

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