The Supreme Electoral Committee (SEC) announced Saturday that the newly drafted national charter was approved by 98.1 percent of voters.

SEC head Nabil Salib says 38.6 % of registered voters cast ballots in last week's referendum on the draft constitution, surpassing the 32.9 % turnout of 2012 constitutional referendum.

Egypt's new constitution strengthens the country's three key institutions – the military, the police and the judiciary. It also gives more rights to women and disabled people, and removes certain Islamist-leaning clauses inserted under Morsi, while maintaining the principles of Islamic sharia as the main source of legislation.

Around 40 percent of registered expats voted in the 2012 constitution referendum, with more than 63 percent voting in favour of the charter.

In the build-up to the referendum, General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the army chief who ousted Morsi last July, hinted he would view a strong yes-vote and a high turnout as a mandate to run for the presidency later this year.

In my opinion, everything that's going on and the elections won't change this country. Egypt is on it's way to be like Syria in the next few years. With Sisi running for the presidency and the Rabiaas that can't forget and won't forget what the General did to their people at Raabia running for revenge and their rights, how will the country progress?
The country is polarised. On the one side stand the army generals, the security establishment, the interim government, the bureaucracy, the power and money-brokers of the Mubarak regime and its party structure, the Islamists who've broken away from the Muslim Brotherhood, and almost the entire media. On the other side is the Brotherhood and what's left of its Alliance for Legitimacy that still holds with some Islamist groups. In its year in power the Brotherhood tried to make an alliance with the army generals, the security establishment, the power and money-brokers of the Mubarak regime and its party structure; it failed.

Will Egypt change? Will Egyptians learn from the mistakes of the past three years? Will they be able, next time around, to put Egypt on the road to social justice without which there can be no stability? Or have they simply learned that all endeavor is useless? The answers will be in our hands in the next couple of months.