The Referendum Results

I'll be posting more later about the Egyptian referendum (77% yes, about 22% no) but until I do I'd recommend Issandr El Amrani's take here and here.

And since, despite his base in Cairo, Issandr is a Moroccan-American, take a look at comments by Egyptian bloggers Zeinobia and Sandmonkey. All in English. I'll sample others later.

And note that many who voted no are still pleased. There were irregularities — the ancien regime has not been swept away entirely — but the results were credible, given that the military, the Muslim Brotherhood, the old guard and some at least of the young revolutionaries backed a yes vote. It may not have been a perfectly run elections (American critics: remember "hanging chads"? but it was probably the fairest in the living memory of most Egyptian voters, though not all will agree.