The plebiscite is the democratic mumbo jumbo of the modern dictator. Last week 40-year-old Dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser triumphantly ran off a plebiscite ratifying his power over two ancient countries, then stepped to his Cairo balcony and delivered his inaugural address to half a million screaming schoolchildren. “O youth,” he shouted, “the United Arab Republic has come into being.” The merger of Egypt and Syria, he said, now becomes “the basis of Arab union.” “Mabrouk Gamal—Congratulations, Gamal,” shrieked the schoolkids. Rockets burst overhead, parachuting small Egyptian and Syrian flags down on their heads. Egypt’s top singer, Mohamed Abdel Wahab, led them in chanting the newly composed anthem of the Arab union: “O Allah, We Won by Your Will.”
Partly because jittery officials laid on heavy security guards that kept crowds from gathering, Syria’s salute to its extinction seemed more subdued. But citizens voted heavily—twice as many cast ballots as in any previous election. They also voted publicly, and one NBC cameraman photographed the same voter marking four different ballots before stuffing them in the ballot box in a Damascus mosque. By official count, only 386 of more than 7,400,000 who voted in the two countries cast ballots against union. Only 452 said no to Nasser as the United Arab Republic’s chief of state. By this count Nasser won 99.994% of the vote. It was even better than the 99.784% he racked up running for President of merely Egypt in 1956. As the Syrian Cabinet met under old President Shukri el Kuwatly to dissolve itself, Nasser raised his old Egyptian army comrade Abdel Hakim Amer to field marshal and appointed him commander of the republic’s armed forces.
Nasser’s spectacular display overshadowed the steady progress of the rival Arab Federation. In Baghdad the Iraqi Parliament decorously voted unanimous approval. In Amman, as King Hussein watched from a gallery, Jordan’s legislators shouted their assent the next day.
In Cairo the Soviet Union led the parade of governments extending formal recognition to Nasser’s new regime. At the U.S. Damascus embassy, due for downgrading to consulate general, an aggressive local enterprise tacked a notice on the bulletin board: “All sizes of packing trunks. Call Mrs. Kobbani.” Under the solvent of Arab nationalism, the old lines were fading on the map of the Middle East; Cairo and Baghdad would resume struggles almost as old as the Euphrates and the Nile, but along new frontiers.