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A Kenny G Holiday
“Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has pulled ahead of pop star Miley Cyrus to claim the top spot in Time magazine’s annual reader poll for person of the year, in a vote that saw accusations of hacking for the second year in a row. Time announced the results on Friday, revealing that Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan came in second with 20.8% of the votes. He came in just above Cyrus, who had 16.3% of the vote. The vote comes ahead of the magazine editors’ person of the year announcement next week. To reach the top spot, Sisi collected 26.2% of the votes……… “Sisi’s numbers were driven by massive support from his native Egypt: the country accounted for the largest number of votes on the Time.com poll,” said the publication in a statement. “India and the United States provided the second and third highest number of responses, respectively.” Cyrus’ presence alongside two political leaders is a combination of the poll’s criteria – selecting a person based on influence rather than merit – and the susceptibility of online polls to computer-assisted trickery. Brutal dictators have also succeeded in past years’ votes. Kim Jong-un won the 2012 online reader poll. That win was pinned on the motley group of internet pranksters………………..”
They are celebrating in some Arab media this first victory by General Sisi. All this is almost meaningless: it doesn’t mean any of these celebrities and coup-makers will be on the cover of Time.
Some Gulf and Egyptian media made it sound like he will be on the cover of Time. It says here Kim Jong-Un won the 2012 person of the year ‘readers poll’, mostly through votes of pranksters in Seoul and California. None of them will be Person of the Year: even Time is not that dumbed down, not yet. Maybe the cover of Mad Magazine. I also suspect mostly Egyptians and Saudi royals voted for Sisi. They did it probably because they have a lot of time on their hands. Most other people around the world wouldn’t know Sisi from a Nono.
(The Guardian also claims Sisi “was elected deputy prime minister after the coup“. Nobody elected him: he appointed himself).
Cheers
mhg