“With [Egypt’s] residents politically polarised between a minority that supports the Muslim Brotherhood and a majority that backs the regime that ousted the Brotherhood from power last July, tensions have risen in advance of the referendum on January 14th and 15th on a new constitution.”
In “bustling Cairo, the government’s get-out-the-yes-vote campaign takes many forms. Funded by aid from rich Gulf states, make-work schemes have sent teams of workmen to pave and clean streets, paint bridge railings and otherwise tidy the accumulated clutter of post-revolutionary neglect.”
“The same impatience can be seen in efforts to ‘secure’ the voting from what Egypt’s media ceaselessly decry as Brotherhood terrorists and saboteurs. Overzealous police, for instance, took it upon themselves to arrest half a dozen fellows who were silly enough to think they might add a few posters counselling a no vote to the countless thousands chorusing YES. Some officials admit with a sigh that such security excesses threaten to undermine the legitimacy of the vote, if not the regime itself. Most, however, accuse the foreign press of being unfair. Why, they ask, do you stress such negative details rather than the bigger, positive picture of Egypt’s return to stability?”
“Significant sums of that generous Gulf aid have gone towards addressing this perceived image problem. Among several Washington public relations firms recently hired, one sent a film crew to Egypt to shoot some pretty footage of order and progress. Within hours of setting foot on the streets of Cairo, they were arrested.”
Read more: Rumour and referendum in Egypt
2021-week18
