Khalid Amayreh

By now, it should be sufficiently clear that the coup gang in Egypt, led by Gen. Abdul Fattah Sissi, has embarked on a scandalous falsification of the Egyptian people's will.

Sissi and his puppet government had designated 26 and 27 May for voting to elect a new president following the military coup against Muhammad Mursi, the only democratically-elected president in Egypt's entire history. Sissi had no real opponents to compete with in last week's elections as the leaders of the main rival political force in the country, namely the Muslim Brotherhood, remained locked up in jail, with their party declared a terrorist group by a notoriously pliant justice system that is at the military's beck and call..

Hamdeen Sabahi, a shockingly disingenuous candidate, never posed any real challenge to Sissi. His reluctant campaign and obsequious discourse toward the coup leader, caricatured a weak and confused man whose only "qualification" was his pathological dislike of the Islamists.

Hence, Sissi had the arena, nearly empty of contenders. It was more or less a one-man race.

Sissi had convinced himself he was so popular. He seemed to have believed the notorious big lie that 50 or 60 million Egyptians did call on him last July to deliver Egypt from Mursi and the Islamists, who had never actually been given a chance to rule, thanks to the unmitigated conspiracies of the so-called "deep state" that ruled Egypt ever since the 1952 coup that overthrew King Farouk.

On 26 and 27 May, Sissi and supporters belatedly discovered that they were living the big lie and that they were actually a small and hated minority in Egypt and that the 50 or 60 million tale belonged to the realm of fantasy, not reality.

Indeed, out of some 54 million eligible voters only four million showed up at the ballot boxes. This means, that at least 50 million Egyptians stayed home, opting to boycott the election farce.

Everyone, including CNN, BBC, Reuters and ordinary citizens reported that the number of policemen and army personnel at the voting centers exceeded the number of voters.

In fact, according to the Egyptian Center for Media and Public Opinion Studies, the voter turnout on the first two days of election didn't exceed 7.5% of eligible voters. (See figure below -the percentage column))

The shockingly low turnout instantly generated overwhelming panic in the Sissi camp. Media figures lost their composure and became visibly nervous. Some of them started cursing the Brotherhood live.

In this atmosphere, the election committee, run by former intelligence officers loyal to Sissi, decided to extend voting by a third day in a desperate effort to "salvage" the situation.

After all, Sissy's and the entire coup's image was at stake, which required a swift and "extraordinary measure" to avert a real disaster.

And the "extraordinary measure" was taken in the evening of 28 May in the offices of the Interior Ministry which instructed the election committee to "act."

Within minutes, the number of voters rose from 4 million the previous day to 25 million.

Upon hearing this, I contacted two honest Egyptian journalists working in state-run media to ask them about what really happened.

They both told me that the authorities falsified the results and that the figures released by the election committee were absolutely fictitious. Given the shocking lack of honesty and rectitude in the Sissi camp, I have no reason to doubt or question the two journalists' judgment.

Moment of Truth

Sissi will be sworn in as President of Egypt in a few says. But he will be a totally- false President who has come at the helm of power via deception, fraudulence and falsification of the Egyptian people's will. Sissi will always be a scandalous fraud even if he is given a red-carpet reception around the world.

Now, what are western powers going to do in the face of this scandal? How are they going to relate this despicable imposter?

Frankly, I don't count on western powers' moral credentials. They nearly have none.

But Sissi's rule won't last long and the people of Egypt and Muslims around the world won't forgive the West its monumental perfidy.

We won't forgive nor forget the west's embrace of the criminal Sissi junta.

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Khalid Amayreh is a Palestinian journalist and political commentator living in occupied Palestine