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 CAIRO — The political crisis over Egypt’s draft constitution hardened on both sides on Sunday, as President Mohamed Morsi prepared to deploy the army to safeguard balloting in a planned referendum on the new charter and his opponents called for more protests and a boycott to undermine the vote. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Thousands of demonstrators streamed toward the presidential palace for a fifth night of protests against Mr. Morsi and the proposed charter, and the president, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, formally issued an order asking the military to protect such “vital institutions” and to secure the vote. 
 
 With the decision to boycott the referendum, the opposition signaled that it had given up hope that it could defeat the draft charter at the polls, and had opted instead to try to undermine the referendum’s legitimacy. 
 
 The call for new protests — with major demonstrations expected at the presidential palace again on Tuesday and Friday — ensures that questions about Egypt’s national unity and stability will continue to overshadow debate about the specific contents of the charter. Although international experts who have studied the draft say it is hardly more religious than Egypt’s old constitution, opponents say it fails to adequately protect individual rights from being constricted by a future Islamist majority in Parliament. 
 
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 Over the past two weeks, hundreds of thousands of people have poured into the streets to oppose the charter, crowds have attacked 28 Muslim Brotherhood offices and the group’s headquarters, and at least seven people have died in clashes between Islamist and secular political factions. 
 
 The opposition “rejects lending legitimacy to a referendum that will definitely lead to more sedition and division,” said Sameh Ashour, a spokesman for a coalition that calls itself the National Salvation Front. Holding a referendum “in a state of seething and chaos,” Mr. Ashour said, amounted to “a reckless and flagrant absence of responsibility, risking driving the country into violent confrontations that endanger its national security.” 
 
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 Whether to ask voters to vote no or to stay home has been the subject of heated debate in opposition circles in the week since Mr. Morsi announced the referendum, to be held on Saturday. 
 
 Now the question is whether opponents can translate the energy of the protests against the charter into more votes and seats in parliamentary elections that are expected to take place two months after the referendum. 
 
 Both sides acknowledge that President Morsi, who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, has hurt himself and his party politically with the act that first touched off the protests: a decree giving himself authoritarian powers and putting his decisions above the reach of judicial review until the new charter is passed. He suffered even more, they say, when the backlash against the decree and the new constitution led to a night of clashes between his Islamists supporters and their more secular opponents that left at least six dead and hundreds more injured. 
 
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 Mr. Morsi surprised his critics after midnight on Sunday by withdrawing almost all the provisions of his decree, a step he said he took on the recommendation of about 40 politicians and thinkers he convened on Saturday for a “national dialogue” meant to resolve the crisis. Leading opposition figures were invited to take part, but nearly all declined; according to a list broadcast on state television, most of the attendees were Islamists of various stripes, and the only prominent secular politician on hand was the former presidential candidate Ayman Nour. 
 
 A spokesman for the group said at an authorized news conference that Mr. Morsi was issuing a new, more limited decree, giving immunity from judicial scrutiny only to his “constitutional declarations,” a narrow if hazily defined category of presidential actions. Steps he took under the previous decree would also be protected, including dismissal of the public prosecutor, who was appointed under the ousted former president, Hosni Mubarak. 
 
 Through the spokesman for the “national dialogue” group, Mohamed Salim el-Awa, Mr. Morsi even signaled a willingness to allow his opponents and allies to negotiate a package of amendments to the constitution that all sides would agree to enact once the draft is approved. 
 
 But Mr. Morsi did not concede to the opposition’s main demand: to postpone the referendum long enough for an overhaul of the draft. 
 
 Mohamed ElBaradei, the former diplomat who now acts as a coordinator of the secular opposition, was the first to fire back on Sunday, resorting again to the language of revolution. 
 
 “We have broken the barrier of fear: A constitution that aborts our rights and freedoms is one that we will bring down today, before tomorrow,” Mr. ElBaradei wrote in a Twitter posting early on Sunday. “Our power is in our will.” 
 
 As his proposed compromise faded and tensions mounted on Sunday, Mr. Morsi followed through on plans announced the day before to authorize the military to protect national institutions and polling places. His order, printed in the official gazette on Sunday, amounts to a form of martial law, because it will allow soldiers under the direction of the defense minister to arrest civilians under a military code of justice. 
 
 The move indicated that, at least in the short term, Egypt’s powerful military was lining up behind the new Islamist president to complete the transition to a new constitution. Muslim Brotherhood leaders cheered a Defense Ministry spokesman’s televised statement explaining that the army might step in to maintain order for the balloting next Saturday because the spokesman’s wording echoed passages in many of the president’s speeches about the need for Egyptians to come together for the referendum. 
 
 The apparent alliance between the Brotherhood and the military reverses 60 years of mutual hostility, and it is likely to disappoint some Egyptians who fear the Islamists and had begun to whisper that the military might remove Mr. Morsi from power. 
 
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 One person close to Mr. Morsi said the president issued the order so that troops could secure the voting process, as they have done in each of Egypt’s elections since the ouster of Mr. Mubarak. Islamists, including some around Mr. Morsi, have become increasingly distrustful of the Interior Ministry, whose police forces have failed to stop attacks on Muslim Brotherhood offices or vandalism outside the presidential palace. 
 
 But Amr Moussa, a former foreign minister under Mr. Mubarak who is now an opposition leader, said it may have been the military’s idea, not the president’s, to issue the authorization, and with it a veiled warning. “Everybody — all of us in civil society — are getting really disturbed by this very serious situation,” he said. “Everybody is upset, and that extends into the army.” 
 
 After taking office in June, Mr. Morsi spent months courting the generals, sometimes earning the derision of liberal activists for his public flattery of their role. The constitution his supporters eventually drew up included protections of the military’s autonomy and privileges within the Egyptian government, despite the protests of the same activists. 
 
 The “national dialogue” group concluded on Saturday, as Mr. Morsi had, that the constitutional referendum had to be held quickly and could not be delayed. The timing was forced, they said, by an earlier constitutional declaration that was approved by voters in March 2011, a month after Mr. Mubarak’s overthrow, over the objections of the liberals. That referendum also set up the framework for parliamentary elections, which were won handily by Islamist parties and candidates; the Parliament was later dissolved by the country’s constitutional court. ||||| 1 of 13. Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi (C) attends a meeting with Egypt's Vice President Mahmoud Mekky (L) with other politicians and heads of parties at the presidential palace in Cairo December 8, 2012. Mursi cancelled a decree which had sparked huge protests by giving him sweeping powers. 
 
 CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's main opposition coalition rejected on Sunday Islamist President Mohamed Mursi's plan for a constitutional referendum this week, saying it risked dragging the country into "violent confrontation". 
 
 Mursi's decision on Saturday to retract a decree awarding himself wide powers failed to placate opponents who accused him of plunging Egypt deeper into crisis by refusing to postpone the vote on a constitution shaped by Islamists. 
 
 "We are against this process from start to finish," Hussein Abdel Ghani, spokesman of the National Salvation Front, told a news conference, calling for more street protests on Tuesday. 
 
 The Front's main leaders - Nobel peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa and leftist Hamdeen Sabahy - did not attend the event. 
 
 Hundreds of protesters milled around Mursi's palace, despite tanks, barbed wire and other barriers installed last week after clashes between Islamists and their rivals killed seven people. 
 
 "Holding a referendum now in the absence of security reflects haste and an absence of a sense of responsibility on the part of the regime, which risks pushing the country towards violent confrontation," a statement from the Front said. 
 
 The Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled Mursi from obscurity to power, urged the opposition to accept the referendum's verdict. 
 
 Islamists say the vote will seal a democratic transition that began when a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak 22 months ago after three decades of military-backed one-man rule. 
 
 Their liberal, leftist and Christian adversaries say the document being fast-tracked through could threaten freedoms and fails to embrace the diversity of Egypt's 83 million people. 
 
 "ACT OF WAR" 
 
 Mursi had given some ground on Saturday when he annulled the fiercely contested decree issued on November 22 that gave him extra powers and shielded his decisions from judicial review. 
 
 But some measures taken under the decree remain in force and the president has insisted the referendum go ahead on December 15. 
 
 Liberal opposition leader Ahmed Said earlier described the race to a referendum as an "act of war" against Egyptians. 
 
 Egypt is torn between Islamists, who were suppressed for decades, and their rivals, who fear religious conservatives want to squeeze out other voices and restrict social freedoms. Many Egyptians just crave stability and economic recovery. 
 
 Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan said the scrapping of Mursi's decree had removed any reason for controversy. 
 
 "We ask others to announce their acceptance of the referendum result," he said on the group's Facebook page, asking whether the opposition would accept "the basics of democracy". 
 
 The cancellation of Mursi's decree, announced after a "national dialogue" on Saturday boycotted by almost all the president's critics, has not bridged a deep political divide. 
 
 Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, a technocrat with Islamist leanings, said the referendum was the best test of opinion. 
 
 "The people are the makers of the future as long as they have the freedom to resort to the ballot box in a democratic, free and fair vote," he said in a cabinet statement. 
 
 But opposition factions, uncertain of their ability to vote down the constitution against the Islamists' organizational muscle, want the document redrafted before any vote. 
 
 "A constitution without consensus can't go to a referendum," said Hermes Fawzi, 28, a protester outside the palace. "It's not logical that just one part of society makes the constitution." 
 
 DIALOGUE 
 
 Egypt tipped into turmoil after Mursi grabbed powers to stop any court action aimed at hindering the transition. An assembly led by the Brotherhood and other Islamists then swiftly approved the constitution it had spent six months drafting. 
 
 Opponents, including minority Christians, had already quit the assembly in dismay, saying their voices were being ignored. 
 
 After the dialogue hosted by Mursi, a spokesman announced that the president had issued a new decree whose first article "cancels the constitutional declaration" of November 22. He said the referendum could not be delayed for legal reasons. 
 
 The decree ignited more than two weeks of sometimes violent protests and counter-rallies in Egypt. Mursi's foes have chanted for his downfall. Islamists fear a plot to oust the most populous Arab nation's first freely-elected leader. 
 
 Islamists reckon they can win the referendum and, once the new constitution is in place, a parliamentary election about two months later. The Islamist-led lower house elected this year was dissolved after a few months by a court order. 
 
 Investors appeared relieved after Mursi rescinded his decree, sending Egyptian stocks 4.4 percent higher on Sunday. Markets are awaiting approval of a $4.8 billion IMF loan later this month designed to support the budget and economic reforms. 
 
 The military, which led Egypt's transition for 16 turbulent months after Mubarak fell, told feuding factions on Saturday that only dialogue could avert "catastrophe". But a military source said these remarks did not herald an army takeover. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Edmund Blair and Yasmine Saleh; editing by David Stamp)
– Mohamed Morsi's decision to surrender the nearly dictatorial powers he'd granted himself wasn't enough to quell the fury on the streets of Cairo today, as crowds marched on the presidential palace, the New York Times reports. Morsi has responded by placing government institutions under military protection until after next weekend's controversial constitutional referendum. That referendum is protesters' main beef. "We are against this process from start to finish," a spokesman for Egypt's main opposition group said today, calling for even more sweeping protests on Tuesday. Opponents say the proposed constitution is too heavily influenced by Islamists, and want the vote pushed back, Reuters reports. "Holding a referendum now in the absence of security reflects haste and an absence of a sense of responsibility … which risks pushing the country towards violent confrontation," the spokesman said.