Christmas Day in Egypt

Nearly two years after the Arab Spring began, Egypt has a new Constitution - for now.

The National Election Commission announced this afternoon that 64% of those Egyptians who voted in a constitutional referendum, held in two stages on 15 and 22 December, said yes. There were 52 million Egyptians eligible to vote; 32% did. Of the majority of the electorate who didn't, it was not through indifference; most deliberately boycotted the election. There were no voting irregularities, according to the Commission - this, despite the refusal by most Egyptian judges to monitor the process, and allegations that fake judges were used instead.

If the Constitution holds, Egypt will be in significant ways a very different country. It certainly does not envisage a broad, inclusive and secular society, which had at least appeared to be the whole point of the Arab Spring revolution.  Articles two and four state, respectively, that "the principles of Islamic sharia" are the basis of legislation, and that the scholars of Al Azhar, an Islamic university, will interpret sharia, not parliament or the courts. Freedom of religion is said to be guaranteed, yet insulting prophets is punishable. In other ways, Egypt will, depressingly, very much resemble the eras of Mubarak, and the several dictators that preceded him. Thus, the new Constitution explicitly re-establishes an all-powerful presidency. And the special position of the military is to be maintained, to be headed by a defence minister who is an officer (not an appointed civilian), and to operate under its own budget with the right to detain, arrest and try Egyptian citizens.

Benjamin Franklin, in his masterful address (delivered by James Wilson, because Franklin was old and very weak) to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, commented on the potential legitimacy of the final draft of the US Constitution. He said that "much of the strength and efficiency of any Government in procuring and securing happiness to  the people, depends on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of the Government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its Governors". As Egypt now moves to elections for the lower house of parliament, the "opinion" of Egyptians regarding its current government will likely once again become evident in Tahir Square.