An election in Egypt that leaves the voter no choice

Egypt is going to a presidential election on March 16-18. Even if we say election, it is really just a figure of speech. What will take place on this date is called an "election" and all the news looks at it this way, but in truth there are no options from which a choice can be made. With all the candidates, and those who might have become candidates, arrested during or before the candidacy process, Egypt will in effect go to the election with a single candidate. The voter has been left no option other than voting for Sisi, who seized power by a coup against President Mohamed Morsi, elected five years ago in a genuine election.

In fact, whether one uses this option or not hardly matters either. That is, most of the Egyptian people will probably not want to take part in this act of voting, which in all likelihood has no character of an election and will not affect the result in any way.

They will not want to, because they have no hope of changing the result, and also have a tendency not to want to lend legitimacy to such a farce. Yet even this will not save the situation, because even if the turnout rate is low, what will happen is clear. Since in an election spread over three days the vote is open and the counting is secret, even if the people, in spite of everything, cast a "wrong" vote, their vote will be "corrected," or the turnout rate will be adjusted by the ballot-box officials on the third day to the desired level.

Just as in the election theater staged four years ago, that is, right after the coup. When, at the end of the second day of the election, announced beforehand as two days, held again against a wholly token candidate of the coup general Sisi, it became clear that turnout was below ten percent, the election was extended to a third day and on the third day turnout was "raised" to 47 percent (now, as a precaution, the election period has been set from the start at three days).

Of course, as one might guess, this process ended with Sisi winning the election with 97 percent. Just like in the old days... Election results reaching a hundred percent are the tragicomic scenes of the countries in which the Arab Spring process was experienced. Of course, one must give Sisi credit: he has surpassed all the dictatorships in the Middle East in repression and in arbitrary and reckless practices.

Recognizing no rules, feeling no need to account to his own society or to the international community, he does what he does in the most merciless, most reckless way of any who have ever come. He is a clumsy magician, who, though popular support has fallen to a percent or so, goes so far as to attempt to present this support in an election as 99 percent. Clumsy, because he cannot manage to dazzle the eye; merely by brute force, saying "I did it, it's done," he wraps up the business.

The rope between Sisi and society, and even the other institutions that supported Sisi at first and now say "this is too much," is growing thinner. Now a mass expectation has formed as to where and when it will snap.

A scene from Egypt in fact shows the whole picture most clearly.

Shortly after the coup of 2013, football matches in Egypt began to be played without spectators. Because the great majority of the chants fans made from the stands had turned from chants about the match into chants against the coup plotters. In this situation they even resorted to the measure of barring spectators entirely, not for a match or two.

In the past few days, for the first time in four years, spectators were admitted to matches. In the match of Al Ahly, the club with the largest fan base, the crowd again did what was feared and chanted slogans protesting Sisi and the coup. Slogans such as "We said it in its time, O dictator, what we need is freedom, freedom, freedom" and "O oppressive order, understand now, my demand is clear, freedom, freedom, freedom" were repeated at the top of their voices throughout the match.

Of course, once this feared thing happens, it is not hard to guess what will follow. Immediately after the match, Sisi started a new and wide wave of arrests among those he had identified or wanted as involved in this incident.

These protests that emerged in the stadiums despite so much repression reflect in fact not only the attitude and feelings of the political opposition but of the average Egyptian people. From such a picture of the people, that the result that will come out of the election is already known deeply grieves the ordinary Egyptian people.

Some people may still be lamenting why we are on bad terms with Egypt. If they are genuinely thinking of this sincerely in terms of the gains of Turkish foreign policy, I would only like to remind them that in Egypt at present there is no state that can think about and weigh the interests of its own country, and therefore that keeping relations good with those sitting in the seat of state can gain nothing. Because one who does not know the interest of his own country has nothing he can give to anyone else either.

Let us set aside how much he represents his people: at present there is a ruler whose tomorrow's actions cannot even be predicted, who lacks even a shopkeeper's logic. Those who do business with him are bound to become like him. Yet the principled and persistent stance Turkey has shown in Egypt secures, in the long run, a very firm place in the hearts of not only Egypt but of all the peoples of the region. The place in the hearts of those who will, sooner or later, take the will into their own hands in their own countries... What befits Turkey is to play for that place in those hearts. Whatever anyone may say...