L. M. ISAEV A. V. KOROTAEV Doctor of Historical Sciences HSE, IAfr RAS Keywords: Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Morsi, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, army, referendum, constitution, provinces of Egypt, political processes From January 14 to 15, 2014, Egypt held a referendum on a new constitution drafted by the Constitutional Assembly under the chairmanship of Amr Moussa. The majority of Egyptians who took part in the referendum (98.13%) voted in favor of the adoption of the new basic law, while only 1.87% of the votes were cast against 1. It is known that the main opponent of the adoption of the new constitution was the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement, whose de facto leader, Mohammed Morsi, was removed from power in a military coup on July 3, 2013, and the constitution adopted during his rule was suspended in December 2012. The Association called on its supporters to boycott the 2014 referendum. The confrontation between Islamists and secularists, represented primarily by the military, in Egypt has a long history. Even after the Free Officers ' Revolution of 1952, the Muslim Brotherhood, which opposed the royal regime of Farouk I, after a brief period of cooperation with the military, had no place in the new republican regime, which continued until the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1970.2 The situation changed somewhat after Anwar Sadat came to power, when the authorities began to turn a blind eye to the appearance of representatives of the Brotherhood in the country's parliament, primarily due to independent candidates and de facto alliances with other parties, as was the case in the 1979 elections, when some members of the Muslim Brotherhood association marched according to the lists of the Socialist Party of Labor 3. A similar situation persisted under Hosni Mubarak until the 2010 parliamentary elections, which were totally rigged.4 After the departure of H. Mubarak, the situation changed dramatically: The Muslim Brotherhood gained legal status and immediately de ... Read more