“The ripple effects of Hosni Mubarak’s ouster over the weekend are being felt all over the region. The message being sent out from Tahrir Square is that Mideast leaders who want to stay in power must garner legitimacy through a fair, democratic election process.

The blatant rigging of the winter’s parliamentary elections in Egypt was at least part of the cause of Mubarak’s fall. Nobody expected a loss for the National Democratic Party, which has ruled the country since its creation in 1978 by Mubarak’s predecessor Anwar Sadat. Egypt is renowned for election shams – so much so that during the 2006 Palestinian elections, when it became known Egypt would send officials to join international monitoring of the voting process, Palestinians joked that they might wake up to find they had elected Mubarak as their president. But unlike in 2005, the latest “elections” lacked even any remote resemblance to the real thing.”

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