Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi, elected last June 17th, announced a referendum on December 15th on a draft constitution which has been prepared in all quickness. President Mursi and its partners turn their backs on democratic goals and legitimate hopes of the popular uprising of 2011.

The draft of the new constitution means the end of the Egyptian welfare state and the submission to the dictates of the IMF, while the Islamic power ignores the urgent social problems, the fight against poverty, unemployment and inequalities. It continues the neoliberal policies of the former regime of Mubarak. The goal of the Islamists is to build a theocratic state, going against the development of individual freedoms, women's rights, a civil state and a state of law.

President Mursi wanted to make this referendum a plebiscite. But it was without counting the exceptional mobilization of the people that took place throughout the country. The decision of Islamist organizations, particularly of the Muslim Brotherhood, to break the popular mobilization by force and violence is manifested in the bloody clashes of the night between last Wednesday and Thursday, which resulted in at least eight dead people and over 700 injured.

The Egyptian people have already succeeded that Mursi withdraws the decree which gave him all powers. The struggles will continue this week to demand a postponement of the vote on the constitution, originally intended for the 15th December, and to open the way to another - truly democratic  - constitution.

The Party of the European Left, which sided with the Egyptian people since the beginning, expresses its solidarity with them, the workers and all democratic forces in this country who work to build a free, social and democratic Egypt.

10 ^th December 2012