Amended amendments to the Egyptian Constitution to set high citizenship requirements for the President pass
Published: 12/Mar/2011
Source: EUDO Citizenship Observatory
By EUDO CITIZENSHIP expert Gianluca Parolin, American University in Cairo
When Egyptian voters entered the polling stations on 19 March 2011, they found on the ballot a different text of the proposed amendments previously announced by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces on 27 February 2011. Informed decision was clearly not the top priority.
An overwhelming majority of 77% (nationwide) voted in favor of the amendments in a bundled vote on the entire block of the amendments. The absence of a minimum voter turnout made the referendum pass, even with an estimated record-high-but-democratically-low 41% turnout.
The text of article 75 now requires the Presidential candidate and his parents never to have carried (!) a foreign citizenship, and not to be married to a non-Egyptian (!!). The exclamation marks are intended to highlight where the differences with the previous text of the proposed amendments lay. The differences with the pre-11 February 2011 Constitution were already explored in my previous news post.
Read further on EUDO Citizenship Observatory website: