URL http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9505EEDF1230F936A15750C0A9619C8B63

DATE/ AUTHOR None	AUTHORS: Michael Slackman, Mona El-Naggar Contributed Reporting.

H Egypt to Vote on Expanding Powers of the Presidency

S1 Egyptian officials are hoping to add powers to the Constitution that would allow the president to more easily dissolve Parliament and give him free rein to suspend civil liberties and imprison anyone deemed a terrorist threat.

S2 The Egyptian public will be asked to vote Monday on a package of 34 amendments to the Constitution that the government says represent political reform, in part by making it easier for opposition candidates to run for president.

S3 But political opposition and international human rights groups say the package appears more an effort by the governing party to secure its monopoly on power and give constitutional legitimacy to police powers that have long been criticized as excessive and undemocratic.

S4 The sharpest debate has been over three areas of proposed change.
S5 One would ultimately allow broad powers to monitor and detain people accused of terrorist activities while not specifically defining terrorism.
S6 Another would limit the role of judges in monitoring elections, which are often mired in accusations of fraud.
S7 And a third would prohibit the creation of any religious political parties.

S8 ''There is one political regime, and one ruling party with a monopoly over power and wealth, and it wants to give the false impression that there is an ongoing process of political reform,'' said Hassan Nafaa, a political scientist at Cairo University.
S9 ''In reality, it is an assertion of the control of the ruling party.''

S10 The government, however, says the amendments would allow true reform because they would also redistribute powers among the president, the government and Parliament.
S11 Parliament, for example, could with a two-thirds vote cause the collapse of the government.
S12 But the president would have the power to dissolve Parliament without first asking for a public referendum, as current law requires.

S13 The amendments were debated for months in Parliament, then emerged largely unchanged from what had been proposed by the government and the governing party of President Hosni Mubarak.
S14 The State Information Service, the public relations arm of the government, plans to publish a summary of the amendments in every newspaper over three days, starting Saturday -- just two days before the polls open.
S15 The actual text of the amendment is not widely available.
S16 The election had been planned for the first week of April, but it was moved to Monday in a late night vote a week ago in Parliament.

S17 ''We are not telling people what to do; we are asking them to participate,'' said Ayman al-Kaffas, chairman of the State Information Service.
S18 ''We are trying to guarantee maximum integrity of the process, not the outcome of the process.''

S19 Opposition groups, including the popular Muslim Brotherhood, have urged a boycott of the election.

S20 With little doubt about the outcome -- no referendum has failed in modern Egypt -- Amnesty International said in a statement that the proposals represented ''the greatest erosion of human rights in 26 years.''
S21 In equally harsh language, it charged that the antiterrorism provisions would ''simply entrench the long-standing system of abuse'' in place since the adoption of emergency laws after President Anwar el-Sadat was assassinated in 1981.

S22 The government strongly objected to Amnesty International's assessment, and Mr. Kaffas said antiterrorism laws, while necessary, were often unpopular, including the Patriot Act in the United States.

S23 But anxiety permeated the ranks of the governing party as well.
S24 Abdel Moneim Said, a member of the governing National Democratic Party and director of Egypt's premier research center, the government-financed Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, acknowledged concerns over aspects of the changes that could permit ''an abuse of power.''
S25 But he said the changes could also push the country toward reform.
S26 ''I think it is the accumulation of little additions here and there that can generate change eventually,'' he said.

S27 The move is occurring at a time when the government is showing less tolerance for criticism and political opposition.
S28 It has jailed opposition critics, including a member of Parliament and a former presidential candidate; it delayed local council elections by two years; it sentenced a blogger who had criticized the president to four years in prison; it has had troops fire on would-be voters to keep them away from the polls; and it has cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood, arresting members and freezing assets.

S29 The Brotherhood is a banned but tolerated organization that has won wide public support by offering a network of social services throughout the country.
S30 While the crackdown and the amendments would inhibit the Brotherhood's political activities, the group said it would do little to shut down the grassroots operations it has used to build support.

S31 ''We can we do?''
S32 said Muhammad Habib, deputy leader of the Brotherhood.
S33 ''There is not much we can do except increase our activity and our reach to the people.''

S34 Egypt receives about $1.7 billion a year in American military and development aid, and at one time was held up by the White House as the vanguard for Democratic changes in the region.
S35 But the Bush administration's pressure on Mr. Mubarak to enact such changes has evaporated as it has increasingly sought help in dealing with Iran, Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

S36 The United States has been tentative in its comments on the referendum, with the State Department initially saying it was an internal matter for Egypt and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, later telling reporters it was ''disappointing.''

S37 At a news conference in Aswan on Saturday morning with the United Nations secretary general, Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit sharply rejected Ms. Rice's remarks, saying, ''This is our own development, our own country.''

S38 In a televised speech later, Mr. Mubarak insisted that Egypt would never bend to foreign ''pressure, dictation or prerequisites.''

