Opposition demonstration in Souran, 7 September 2012
The leaders of the council governing Souran, a town in rebel-controlled Syria, decide to hold an impromptu meeting right on the footpath along its main street, a gesture of open government that would impress Canada or Sweden.
They draw together some plastic chairs and a table, pour tea and, as pedestrians listen in, explain the workings of the government they have set up to replace the Baath Party and the security officials who ran the region with an iron fist under President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
“This is a new thing for us,” says Faez Hamsho, a businessman and one of 11 members of the town’s governing council. “But when Bashar’s men fled, we had to solve the day-to-day problems of the area.”
To throw the election to [Ahmad] Shafiq, who clearly lost by almost a million votes, would have produced an outpouring of anger and possible violence that the military must have concluded it could not control. It did not matter, though. Declaring Shafiq the winner despite the results was wholly unnecessary due to what the military clearly believes is its ace: the June 17 constitutional declaration.
The timing of the decree, just as polls closed on the second day of the second round of elections, suggests that the military’s action was improvised. As if sometime on Sunday afternoon, one of the officers turned to another and asked with alarm, “What if Morsi wins?” It was anything but ad hoc, however.
Shortly after the fall of Mubarak, Field Marshal Tantawi asked for a translation of Turkey’s 1982 constitution, which both endows Turkish officers with wide-ranging powers to police the political arena and curtails the power of civilian leaders. In the June 17 decree, the military hedged against a Morsi victory by approximating the tutelary role the Turkish military enjoyed until recently. As a result, President Morsi does not control the budget; has no foreign policy, defense, or national security function; and has been stripped of the president’s duty as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, meaning he has no control over military personnel. In addition, having dissolved parliament in a move that has no legal basis, the SCAF now also functions as Egypt’s legislature. Finally, the military will be able to veto articles of a new constitution.
It's not just that Moammar Kadafi's portrait adorns every square and roadway; that he and his family dominate all aspects of the country's political and economic life; that his security forces have infiltrated society through multiple layers of "committees" that replace civic life.
It's not just that Moammar Kadafi's portrait adorns every square and roadway; that he and his family dominate all aspects of the country's political and economic life; that his security forces have infiltrated society through multiple layers of "committees" that replace civic life.
It's also that state television shows nonstop coverage of rallies in support of Kadafi; that his enforcers stand in traffic and demand that taxi drivers unfurl banners; that every single song on the radio is about Kadafi, the 1969 coup that brought him to power, and how happy and blessed Libyans are for all that he has bequeathed them.
"All the people of the world know that we are happy," go the lyrics of one song set to the catchy rhythms of Arab wedding music, "because we are following our leader."
The only suspense surrounding parliamentary elections here and in other Arab countries for many years has been over how many seats the opposition would be allowed to win.
But in Jordanian elections Tuesday, even that question was put to rest beforehand. The main Islamic opposition group and other parties boycotted — not because the vote was rigged against them, but because they say parliament has become pointless.
"There is a conviction that political reform through the elections is useless," said Zaki Bani Arshid, a leader of the Islamic Action Front, the country's main opposition movement.
1530 GMT: Economy Watch. Iran has banned the import of 20 food products, including wheat, rice, and beef. The Government has been under heated criticism for sharp rises in agricultural imports, allegedly putting local producers out of business. The issue has been prominent in the campaign for impeachment of Minister of Agriculture Sadegh Khalilian.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012 at 7:22 | 
