Egypt lawmakers clash over writing constitution

Egyptian lawmakers clashed Saturday over who should have the right to draft the country's constitution, in a heated debate focused on the influence of Islamists on the crucial document and on how religiously conservative Egypt will be. The joint meeting of both houses of Egypt's newly-elected 678-member parliament centered on how to choose the 100 people who will be responsible for writing the country's first constitution after the overthrow of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak.
Islamists want the parliament they control to have a dominant voice and liberals, fearful of too much Islamic influence, prefer a panel of outside experts and activists. Once the panel is seated, it will have six months to draft the constitution and then put it to a national referendum. Lawmakers Saturday said they'll announce the guidelines for picking the panel on March 17 essentially how many would come from the Islamist-dominated parliament. On March 24, they'll announce the panel itself.
The constitution debate centers on how much of a role conservative Islamists will have in writing the document and essentially how Islamic the country will be. The new constitution is expected to curb presidential powers and give parliament more authority, a drastic change of Egypt's political system and a gateway for Islamization of the country as long as Islamists keep their majority in parliament.
The more conservative Salafis want the constitution to be based solely on Islamic law, or Shariah. The Muslim Brotherhood shares many of the Salafists' fundamental beliefs but has avoided going into specifics about the new constitution. It does not wish to alarm moderates or Western allies worried about Egypt turning into a theocracy, and many analysts say the movement's membership contains a wide range of views on how Islamic legal principles should be applied. The political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis, both of whom fared well in the parliament elections and dominate its two chambers, argue that elected parliamentarians must form between 40 and 60 percent of the constitution panel.