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Ali Haider / EPA
An Egyptian woman casts her vote during the referendum for the Egyptian new constitution at the Egyptian consulate in the Gulf emirate of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Wednesday.
CAIRO -- Efforts to resolve Egypt's rapidly worsening political crisis suffered a blow on Wednesday when the army abruptly postponed "unity" talks that the opposition had minutes earlier said they would attend.
Confirmation that the secular, liberal opposition coalition would join the meeting after boycotting reconciliation talks hosted last week by Islamist President Mohammed Morsi had raised hopes of an end to street protests and deadly violence.
ANALYSIS: Egypt is rapidly approaching its own 'cliff'
The latest convulsion in Egypt's transition to democracy was brought on by a decree last month from Morsi in which he awarded himself sweeping powers to ram through a new constitution.
The constitution, to be voted on in a national referendum, is a necessary prelude to parliamentary elections due early next year.
Morsi's government forged ahead by starting voting in diplomatic missions abroad for expatriates on Wednesday. Hours after Egyptians began casting ballots overseas, the main opposition alliance called for a "No" vote rather than the boycott it had favored previously.
Opponents of Egypt President Morsi say he's betraying the revolution, but his supporters say he wants to guarantee human rights with a controversial referendum on a new constitution. NBC's John Ray went onto the streets of Cairo to hear from both sides of the deepening divide.
But the National Salvation Front's decision did not dispel the atmosphere of a nation in crisis, deeply polarized over the referendum.
The opposition still plans more protests and the country's judges are still on strike over Morsi's decree, which caused huge controversy and brought thousands of pro- and anti-government protesters onto the streets in the worst upheaval since the fall of Hosni Mubarak almost two years ago.
The unrest has so far claimed seven lives in clashes between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and the opposition. But the army has yet to use force to keep protesters away from the presidential palace, now ringed with tanks, barbed wire and concrete barricades.
There are also growing concerns about the already flailing economy a day after Egypt requested a postponement of a $4.8 billion IMF loan. Morsi suspended a package of tax hikes that had been part of a program to reduce Egypt's huge budget deficit for fear the measure would add to political tensions.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
It seems that the only thing Muslims can agree on is that it is the infidels fault.
Yeah, just like everything else is Bush's fault.
Neither side will agree to talks about unity until they know who is winning.
Let's support a breakaway Coptic country in the south of Egypt. Like East Timor--founded when the Muslims in Indonesia killed 150,000 Christians.
Sounds like the poker game is on.
Soon as that side of the world figgers out to seperate reliegon and state they may find that the civilized worl is a nice place to live. Organized reliegons only teach intolorance and hate. From the christains catholics budists hindues,,,,,Im not saying reliegon is a bad thing most have great moral teachings. but soon as they get a large following and you have 1 or 2 a holes calling the shots (or telling every one what there holy book says) things goes down hill real fast. Im not an athiest. If you were to classify me im a Taoist.
I hope everyone realizes this article is referring to the Egyptian Army. It is understood that the Egyptians cannot agree on anything, so this really is not news.
@rachel, the battle lines in today's Egypt is not between the Christians and Muslims, it is actually between moderate Egyptians of every faith and religion on one side, and far-out lunatic Islamist who belong to the Muslim Brotherhood and some, not all, Salafist parties on the other side. However the MB tries to blame Christians for their troubles. When the MB were faced with a strong opposition to their Shariah based constitution, they claimed that the majority of those who opposed their policy are either Christians or atheists, a dark reminder of pre WW II Germany. This week a leader of MB claimed that 60 to 80 percent of those who are demonstrating against the Government are Christians.
As for creating an independent Coptic state, this unrealistic dream had been used by Islamist in Egypt to accuse Christians of treason. In fact in an earlier vote last year, when some NGO were planning to monitor the vote and produced maps of Egypt divided into five regions for their monitoring operation, some Islamist lunatics claimed that these maps show plans for dividing Egypt into five states, one Christian, one Jewish, and so on. So I have to be careful in discussing such an idea.
This is like playing chicken and Russian roulette at the same time. Only with tanks backed by military one side and Egyptian people divided and upset on the other.The military might have the ammo, but the people have the willingness to stick it out.And they are fed up and have learned there is power in numbers.
Like a sleeping giant who has awoken. When he gets ticked off, look out. This President has over stepped his boundaries and will yet have to pay the piper. The people got a whiff of hope for democracy, a glimpse of the possibility of Liberty.They will refuse to go back to the old ways.Even if some must die.There is almost always the final cost of Freedom and Liberty. As so many other patriots of these have discovered for themselves.