Continue reading the main story Video 
 
 Over the past two weeks, hundreds of thousands of people have poured into the streets to oppose the charter, crowds have attacked 28 Muslim Brotherhood offices and the group’s headquarters, and at least seven people have died in clashes between Islamist and secular political factions. Holding a referendum “in a state of seething and chaos,” Mr. Ashour said, amounted to “a reckless and flagrant absence of responsibility, risking driving the country into violent confrontations that endanger its national security.” 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 Whether to ask voters to vote no or to stay home has been the subject of heated debate in opposition circles in the week since Mr. Morsi announced the referendum, to be held on Saturday. Now the question is whether opponents can translate the energy of the protests against the charter into more votes and seats in parliamentary elections that are expected to take place two months after the referendum. Both sides acknowledge that President Morsi, who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, has hurt himself and his party politically with the act that first touched off the protests: a decree giving himself authoritarian powers and putting his decisions above the reach of judicial review until the new charter is passed. But Amr Moussa, a former foreign minister under Mr. Mubarak who is now an opposition leader, said it may have been the military’s idea, not the president’s, to issue the authorization, and with it a veiled warning. The “national dialogue” group concluded on Saturday, as Mr. Morsi had, that the constitutional referendum had to be held quickly and could not be delayed.
– Mohamed Morsi's decision to surrender the nearly dictatorial powers he'd granted himself wasn't enough to quell the fury on the streets of Cairo today, as crowds marched on the presidential palace, the New York Times reports. Morsi has responded by placing government institutions under military protection until after next weekend's controversial constitutional referendum. That referendum is protesters' main beef. "We are against this process from start to finish," a spokesman for Egypt's main opposition group said today, calling for even more sweeping protests on Tuesday. Opponents say the proposed constitution is too heavily influenced by Islamists, and want the vote pushed back, Reuters reports. "Holding a referendum now in the absence of security reflects haste and an absence of a sense of responsibility … which risks pushing the country towards violent confrontation," the spokesman said.