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.

Let me start with the latter (ii), the de-gendering. In the previously released text, the proposed amendment was gendered: the candidate President could not be married to a non-Egyptian (woman, because in the feminine in Arabic), surreptitiously marking the Presidency a male-only office—with apparently wide support, considering the public debate that followed and the reaction of my law students at Cairo University (apparently they were taught before the amendments that the Egyptian Constitution reserved the Presidency to male Egyptians, simply because the citizenship requirement said that the candidate had to be Egyptian (in the masculine)—I spent endless time and energy trying to legally deconstruct this nonsensical argument, and even considered resorting to the ultimate tool: Qur’anic interpretation. Are women not obliged to pray just because the obligation is articulated in the masculine?). The text voted on read: married to a non-Egyptian (in the masculine). Egypt is either heading towards same-sex marriages, or allowing a woman to run for President (or both?).

The former change (i) in the text of the proposed amendments is more problematic. In the previously released text, the proposed amendment required the candidate President and his parents never to have acquired a foreign citizenship (wa-alla yakun qad hasal (..) ‘ala ginsiyya dawla ukhra), the text voted on read: carried a foreign citizenship (hamal (..) ginsiyya dawla ukhra). Why is it problematic? The change was possibly intended to expand the provision by including also cases of acquisition by ius soli and sanguinis rather than sheer naturalisation as “hasal” might have conveyed. However, the paradox is that now a strict interpretation of the combination of the “hamal” with the past tense construction used opens the way for actual dual citizens to run for President, while banning those who had been dual citizens in the past and then renounced the other citizenship. This was probably not the desired result, but rather an outcome of haphazard word-gaming behind closed doors.

For the text of the amendments voted on in English (unofficial translation on the official state information system).

For the text of the amendments voted on in Arabic (on the official state information system the website on 25 March 2011 still carries the proposed amendments as released on 27 February 2011, so please refer to the website of the referendum commission).