Egyptian Referendum Results Begin to Emerge

       Cairo, 3 Shafar 1434/16 December 2012  (MINA) – Polling stations officially closed at 11:00 pm, but social media outlets and user as well as eyewitnesses said that some polling stations are still waiting on some voters to cast their ballots.

     A fierce debate is taking place right now concerning the legality of closing the polling station before the time set by the high elections commission, according to a report published in www.egyptindependent.com monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).

      The Freedom and Justice Party’s Facebook page has started at around 8:30 pm to publish the results of some polling stations in Sharqiya, Assiut, Sohag and Aswan.

       By 9:00 pm, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Twitter account said that preliminary results and exit polls showed a majority voted “yes” on the constitution.

       Some activists said that this cast doubt over the legality of this procedures.

      Zaghloul al-Balshy, the secretary general of the elections commission, said that the commission would decide later on this issue.

      The privately-owned Satellite channel Al-Hayat channel said that some judges closed their polling station earlier because they objected to the decision of the commission to extend the vote until 11 pm.

      Preliminary results are not necessarily indicative of the final results, but figures published by the FJP’s Facebook page show polling stations from Upper Egyptian governorates in Assiut, Sohag and Aswan are overwhelmingly voting “yes.” Other polling stations in the Delta are reported to have more “no” votes.

      Rassd, a pro-Morsy news website, said that at 11:00 pm, around 203,000 voted “yes” (70.7 percent), while around 84,000 voted “no” (29.3 percent), after counting 335 polling stations out of 6,367 polling stations in 10 governorates.

       Smaller polling stations, usually in rural areas, tend to report their results earlier than urban polling stations. (T/R-010/R-006)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)