WILL the constitution approved through a referendum that was hardly transparent give peace and stability to Egypt? The entire exercise is suspect because of the political ambitions developed by army chief Gen Abel Fattah al-Sisi, who overthrew Egypt’s first democratic government and crushed the opposition with an iron hand. The campaign for what the anti-military activists have called a “sham referendum” was rocked by anti-government violence and the arrest of thousands of dissidents, both Islamist and liberal, who had called for a boycott of the vote. The approval of the draft constitution will now be followed by a programme for presidential and parliamentary elections, and it is obvious they will, like the referendum, lack credibility. Egypt is now a police state, Adly Mansour is acting president only in name, and real power rests with the army, whose chief announced recently that he could run for president “at the people’s request”.

The Egyptian army has a vested interest in controlling the political process because of its huge business and industrial stakes. The new constitution, for instance, has a clause which provides for trials in military courts of civilians working in businesses owned by the army. The constitution also restricts demonstrations and protests, and rights NGOs say the basic law will give birth to a political system that does not guarantee citizens’ rights and liberties. No wonder that the opposition calls it “the military’s illegitimate constitution”. When the election campaign begins, the Muslim Brotherhood will not be there, because the military-led government has declared it a terrorist organisation. If history is any guide, parties banned by the military have invariably re-emerged with greater strength. The Brotherhood government had made many mistakes, but a subversion of the constitution was hardly the way to rectify matters. Egypt now seems to be headed towards a Mubarak-type dictatorship, and the fruits of the Tahrir uprising seem all but lost. The system the constitution will give birth to will hardly be able to last long.