ABDUL Fattah Sisi has ‘won’, Egypt is back to the era of Hosni Mubarak and the Arab Spring has turned into a khamsin. Fraudulent from the word go, the Egyptian presidential election has produced results manipulated by the men in khaki, with the former army chief getting an obscene 93pc of the votes. For record’s sake, there was an opposition candidate, and the turnout was abysmally low, with observers doubting the government’s 46pc claim. In July 2013, Mr Sisi overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government led by Mr Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first elected president, who had appointed Mr Sisi defence minister. In March, the former army chief resigned his army post to contest a bogus election whose outcome was designed to put Egypt’s powerful army once again in the driving seat. A parliamentary election was to be held this summer, but the post-Morsi interim government changed the schedule and ordered the presidential election first. With Mr Sisi firmly in the saddle, manipulating the parliamentary election will obviously be an easy task.

With this electoral fraud, Mr Sisi has maintained Egypt’s sad tradition of having a military man as president, Mr Morsi being the only exception. How Egypt will fare under Mr Sisi is not too difficult to predict: he was, after all, the man behind the brutal crackdown on Brotherhood camps in August last year, killing nearly 500 people. The new constitution, getting a 98pc ‘yes’ vote in an equally bogus referendum earlier this year, gives more power to the army and police and provides for military trials of civilians working for defence-owned businesses. It is difficult to say whether or when there will be another Tahrir-like stir that overthrew the Mubarak dispensation. But for the present, the US-led West and the Muslim world have acquiesced in the overthrow of a democratic regime. Last July’s coup was criticised by the West in muted terms, but American aid to Egypt continues — in stark contrast to America’s democratic and human rights record elsewhere.

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2014