Democratic legitimacy has been a difficult topic of conversation in Egypt following the overthrow of Mohammed Morsi’s government on July 3, 2013, by current presidential hopeful and former Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Yet, as Egyptians pour into polling centers across the country on May 26 to vote for the sixth time in a political process since the 2011 revolution, what democratic legitimacy means, particularly in elections, will define state-society relations for years to come.
The arguments over whether to call Morsi’s overthrow a coup or revolution are still unresolved: Most Egyptians tend to refer to it as a revolution, while foreign governments are still reluctant to refer to it all, instead vaguely citing the will of the people, and the international media unabashedly calls Morsi’s overthrow a military coup.