Election results

If you ever needed a reason to take anything I write advisedly, you can take the election results. The constitutional amendments were approved with 77% of the vote. Even though most folks I know voted “no,” my personal polling was not a sound prognosticator (not unlike what I saw in the US in 2004 when everyone I know voted for Kerry). The turnout was 55%, which is quite impressive and encouraging. Many people want economic stability, and feel like the way to achieve that is by moving forward as soon as possible. For one provocative analysis, you can see Sandmonkey’s blog here.

I did have a taxi driver on Saturday night (the evening of the election), who was extremely enthusiastic in his opposition to the amendments. He was a young guy, originally from Fayoum, who had a tribute to the January 25 martyrs hanging from his rearview mirror. So when I asked him why he voted “no,” he simply told me “Midan Tahrir.”