Panel accuses Egyptian government of fraud in referendum,: A state-appointed human rights body accused the Egyptian government of fraud Tuesday, saying that workers in the public sector had been forced to vote in a referendum on constitutional change. But the government said the people had overwhelmingly endorsed the amendments.

Justice Minister Mamdouh Marei said at a news conference that the yes vote in the referendum Monday on 34 constitutional amendments was 75.9 percent, but only 27 percent of the 36 million voters had cast ballots.

Opposition groups had urged voters to boycott the referendum, saying the amendments were a setback to democracy because they increased the president's security powers and the chances of electoral fraud.

President Hosni Mubarak greeted the results announced Tuesday as a victory for the people and promised further unspecified political reform. He did not mention the low turnout.

But the National Council for Human Rights, a state-appointed body headed by a former UN secretary general, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, reported numerous flaws.


"Voter lists were inaccurate, some civil society monitors were prevented from observing some polling stations, local authorities in some provinces organized mass voting, and some electoral officials intervened in the voting process and sometimes filled in ballots," the council said in a statement. "Mass voting" is Egyptian parlance for busing state workers to the polling station.

"The most important and dangerous aspect of the referendum was the low turnout despite a big media campaign in the three preceding days," the council said. The official turnout was 2 percent higher than in the contested 2005 legislative elections.

Rights groups had predicted a low turnout and many polling stations were nearly deserted for most of the day.

One of the leaders of Kifaya, an opposition group that took a leading role in the boycott campaign, scoffed at the declared results.

"In Egypt nobody believes the official figures, only if he is insane," said Abdel-Halim Qandil. "And, supposing that I am insane and I believed these figures, they would mean that the government's popularity has halved," he said, referring to the fact that the government declared a turnout of 54 percent in the 2005 referendum and turnout of 27 percent Monday.

Mubarak had rushed the 34 amendments into law, holding the referendum only seven days after the Parliament approved them, leaving many voters uninformed. The amendments abolish emergency laws, allow election supervision by an independent commission and ban political parties based on religion. Mubarak said Sunday the changes would "give a new push to political party activity" and "stop the exploitation of religion and illegal political behavior."

Marei said 9,701,833 people had voted, or 27.1 percent of the country's 35,865,660 eligible voters. The yes vote was 75.9 percent and the no vote 24.1 percent.