Egypt Islamists call for protests ahead of vote result

CAIRO, Jan 17 (AFP):- Islamist backers of ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi called for protests Friday ahead of the release of results from a constitutional referendum they mocked as a return to the bad old days of authoritarianism.

The military-installed interim authorities trumpeted the two-day poll as a chance for voters to endorse the army's overthrow of Egypt's first freely elected president last July after mass protests on the streets.

But the opposition, which called a boycott of the vote, described it as a farce and predicted it would culminate in the sort of massive electoral fraud that characterised the three-decade rule of Hosni Mubarak, ended by the Arab Spring uprising of 2011.

Flagship state-owned daily Al-Ahram hailed a 98 percent vote in support of the new charter drawn up the interim authorities to replace the Islamist-inspired one adopted under Morsi's rule in December 2012.