Analysis of Egyptian referendum turnout and upcoming elections

10 the Tagammu, as well as by a large collection of NGOs and other representatives of civil society. To some extent, these general orientations shaped the stances, whether for or against, in the referendum on the constitutional amendments, which drew the first clear lines in the post-25 January political map. In that referendum, the first camp obtained 77.2 per cent of the vote versus 22.8 per cent for the second. However, it is important to bear in mind that, in this referendum, a "critical mass" of voters sided with the first camp because they felt that the amendments bill offered the clearest path to the transition from revolutionary legitimacy to the legitimacy of the established state, which is to say to the return to normalcy that Egyptians desperately yearned for at the time. But this sentiment will no longer be a major factor now that this wish has come true and elections are at hand in September. Therefore, it remains open which way this key group of voters will swing in those elections, the results of which will be crucial to the subsequent selection of the constitutional committee and then to the choice of president. Several factors will be instrumental in determining the impact of the "critical mass" of Egyptian voters. Foremost among them will be their turnout at the polls. Only 41 per cent of the 45 million eligible voters took part in the referendum. This relatively low figure could be increased by increasing the number of polling stations, of which there are only 44,000 at present, a factor that has long deterred all but the most committed from braving long voting queues. Secondly, although judicial supervision will now guarantee the integrity of the polls and ensure that people's votes really do count, the proportional electoral list system will yield very different kinds of results than those produced by the individual candidate system. A third critical factor will be campaign financing. Election campaigns and buying television air-time in particular have become extraordinarily HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_030277