Cairo: Egyptians queued up in long lines to vote in the first round of a referendum on a controversial draft constitution, which has been overshadowed by conflicting political opinions.

President Mohammad Mursi and his Islamist allies have touted the charter, drafted by an Islamist-dominated assembly, as essential for re-establishing stability in the country, while the opposition has condemned it as undermining fundamental rights and paving the way for the creation of a religious state.

“I voted for Mursi in the presidential elections,” Hassan Mokhtar, a government employee, told Gulf News as he was waiting outside a polling station in the northern Cairo area of Shubra. “But I’d vote ‘No’ this time because his performance has been disappointing since he became president.”

However, Mokhtar, a father of five, admitted he has not read the draft constitution. “I heard from friends that it is poorly written and confusing. By saying ‘No’ I want to send a message to Mursi and his group [the Muslim Brotherhood] that they have done nothing to help the poor or the revolutionaries who brought them to power.”

The ruling Islamists were oppressed under former president Hosni Mubarak, who was deposed in a popular uprising in February last year. The Brotherhood had been officially banned from 1954 until weeks after the overthrow of Mubarak.

“This constitution does not befit the post-revolution Egypt,” said Hana Shafiq, a Christian engineer, outside the same polling station. “It is full of contradictory clauses and does not give enough attention to the poor people when it comes to healthcare, education and employment.”

Egypt’s Christian minority, estimated at around 10 per cent of the country’s predominantly Muslim 85 million, have voiced concerns over the meteoric rise of Islamists in post-Mubarak Egypt.

A senior official in the Brotherhood last week claimed that at least 60 per cent of anti-constitution protesters who rallied outside a presidential palace in Cairo were Christians, drawing heavy criticism from liberals and Copts.

Around 250,000 army and police personnel were deployed on Saturday at polls to prevent violence.

Opponents and backers of Mursi have clashed in recent weeks, raising fears that the country is sliding in chaos. On the eve of the vote, at least 20 people were injured and three cars torched in the port city of Alexandria after an Islamist preacher urged worshippers to vote for the constitution.

“The constitution is not the issue,” said Mustafa Abbas, a bearded voter in a Western-style suit, in reference to remnants from the Mubarak regime. “In fact, the opposition and the media belonging to fulul [Mubarak loyalists] are out to distort the image of Islamists. They want to hamper Islamists’ drive to weed out corruption and usher the country into a new era of renaissance.”

Mursi has recently accused Mubarak loyalists at home and abroad of paying alleged agents to incite turmoil in the country. Some of his supporters went further to claim that the secular-minded opposition was seeking to depose Mursi, who became Egypt’s first democratically elected president in June.

Mursi was shown on state TV on Saturday casting his ballot at a school in the eastern Cairo quarter of Heliopolis as a long queue of voters appeared in the background.

“Queues of voters waiting outside the polls have dealt a slap in the face to those who cast doubts on the constitution,” Essam Al Erian, the deputy chief of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, wrote on his Facebook account.

The National Salvation Front, led by the Nobel Peace prize winner Mohammad Al Baradei, has called for people to vote against the charter, slamming it as a sham.

The first round of the balloting was held in 10 governorates, including Cairo and Alexandria, with voting time being extended by two hours to cope with high voter turnout, reported state media.

The second round is due on December 22 in Egypt’s other 17 governorates.