CAIRO — President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt took responsibility Wednesday for “mistakes” during the run-up to ratification of the new constitution and urged Egyptians to appreciate the fierce disagreements about it as a “healthy phenomenon” of their new democracy.
Appealing for unity after the bitter debate over the charter, which was finalized by his Islamist allies over the objections of opposition parties and the Coptic Christian Church, Morsi pledged in a televised address to respect the one-third of voters who cast ballots against it.
“This is their right, because Egypt of the revolution — Egypt’s people and its elected president — can never feel annoyed by the active patriotic opposition,” he said, bobbing his head between the camera and the lectern as he read from a prepared text.
“We don’t want to go back to the era of the one opinion and fabricated fake majorities.”
But Morsi offered no concrete concessions, and he did not acknowledge any specific errors, saying only, “There have been mistakes here and there, and I bear responsibility.”
His most tangible outreach to the opposition was an invitation to join a “national dialogue” that has begun under his auspices. Hussein Abdel Ghani, a spokesman for the main opposition bloc, dismissed it as “a dialogue with himself” based on “political bribes.”
Still, Morsi’s attempt at reconciliation, however vague or superficial, represented another notable step in Egypt’s political transition.
Here was a recently elected politician seeking to move from the brutally partisan campaign back to the political middle, and the speech echoed many U.S. inaugural addresses.
It was a stark contrast to Morsi’s previous speech, given just 20 days ago, when he sounded far more like his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.
Then, Morsi attributed a night of deadly violence between his Islamist supporters and their opponents to a conspiracy of foreign agents, old-regime insiders and his political rivals.
Morsi declared in his speech Wednesday that Egypt was “moving steadfastly toward democracy and pluralism.”
Under the new constitution, he said, “everyone is equal without any discrimination.”
“It is truly the dawn of the new Egypt, which has risen and is now shining.”
