Keeping up Election Appearances

Before I start today's press round up and add to the ever growing list of election irregularities, I want to ask why media are pretending this is a real election? Monitoring was not allowed, bar some cosmetic changes in the last minute. The election commission is not taking complaints of irregularities such as NDP member stuffing ballot-boxes or busing voters to cast double vote in several poll stations. There is no transparency into the counting. There never was and no one expected it to be. So how can the wires claim the incumbent "won" an election when there was not a real election? The incumbent is reported to have taken "70 to 80 percent of the votes;" at the same time as Ayman Nour is reported to have the exact figure of 12 percent and the remaining candidates are not even mentioned. By keeping up appearances, media as well as foreign politicians commenting on the election is playing a dictator's game. Is that what Egypt need in this moment?