Ammon News - By Al Arabiya /agencies

A final draft of Egypt’s new constitution would be finished on Wednesday and would be put to a vote on Thursday, the head and three members of the assembly drafting the document have said.

“We will start now and finish today, God willing,” Hossam el-Gheriyani, the assembly speaker, said at the start of a meeting of the constitutional assembly in Cairo. He said Thursday would be a “great day,” without elaborating, and called on the members who had withdrawn from the body to return.

Speaking to Reuters, assembly members Younes Makhyoun and Salah Abdel Maboud, both Salafi Islamists, said a vote on the final draft was planned for Thursday. Amr Abdel Hadi, one of the few remaining liberal members, said the same.


The news comes as thousands of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi’s opponents gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square for a sixth day on Wednesday to protest a recent decree granting him sweeping powers, in the most divisive crisis since he took power in June.

Egyptian opposition figure and former presidential candidate Amr Moussa told Reuters an effort by Egypt’s constitutional assembly to finish the draft on Wednesday did not make sense because of widespread anger with the Islamist-dominated body.

“This is nonsensical and one of the steps that shouldn’t be taken, given the background of anger and resentment to the current constitutional assembly,” he told Reuters.

Egypt’s ruling Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) denied earlier on Friday that President Mursi would retract the recent constitutional declaration, saying it will only remain until a new constitution is ratified, the FJP’s Vice Chairman Essam al-Erian told Al Arabiya.

President Mursi has repeatedly stated the decree will only stay in place until a new parliament is elected - something that can only happen once the constitution is written and passed in a popular referendum.