The New Egyptian Constitution

Voters in Egypt have apparently approved the new constitution that enshrines Sharia law as the basic document for the country. I say "apparently" since the opposition claims that the vote was rife with fraud.

The real truth, however, is that fraud was not needed for the victory. Instead, the government of president Morsi just used other maneuvers to stack the deck in favor of the new constitution. Simply put, by scheduling a quick vote on the lengthy and complicated constitution, Morsi made it impossible for the opposition to educate the country to the flaws in that document. Passage was inevitable.

Unlike many other countries in the area, Egypt has a large non-Muslim population. These folks are now to be subjected to sharia. There are also many millions of Egyptians who are far from devout followers of Islam. These folks too are to be subjected to sharia. Only time will tell if the new government is able to continue to hold power in the face of such a natural opposition. It would have been much better had Egypt adopted an approach that more clearly reflected freedom of religion (or of no religion). Instead, the Moslem Brotherhood went the route of forced adherence. They may succeed, but I doubt it. At some point, there will be yet another explosion of anger in Egypt. It is just a question of when.