THREE hours’ drive from the clamour and crush of Cairo, a quiet village has not been spared the political shockwaves emanating from Egypt’s capital. With its residents politically polarised between a minority that supports the Muslim Brotherhood and a majority that backs the regime that ousted the Brotherhood from power last July, tensions have risen in advance of the referendum on January 14th and 15th on a new constitution. But just now the kitchen chatter in the village focuses on two local men and their differing fortunes. The village baker—let’s call him Mr X—has just put the finishing touches to his new house, whose four marble-clad tiers of balconies loom over the bumpy but asphalted main road. Anyone failing to note that this is the village’s grandest dwelling may take a hint from the foot-high black lettering that crowns the compound’s entrance gate. "Palace of Hajj X" reads the sign, using the honorific bestowed on those fortunate enough to have performed the pilgrimage to Mecca. Smaller letters declare "In the name of God, by the will of God, and there is no change nor power except through God." Two Koranic inscriptions frame the sign and more holy verses adorn every post in the surrounding wall, forming a protective ring of scripture.

The flamboyant piety seems a little out of date. Mr X may have commissioned the artistry when the Muslim Brothers were still in office. His desire to appease Egypt’s shifting rulers is understandable. Everyone in the village knows how he accumulated his impressive fortune. For years, he has siphoned away much of his bakery’s quota of heavily state-subsidised flour, selling it for a profit on the black market.

Back in the days before the 2011 revolution, the baker was an enthusiastic supporter of the then-ruling National Democratic Party. After its fall, his family backed the Brotherhood’s successful local parliamentary candidate. But now, just to make sure there are no doubts of their loyalty to the state, the family has strung two large banners across the road in front of the palace. Fluttering above the buzz of three-wheeled tuk-tuks and heavily laden pickups, the bright letters boldly declare YES to the new constitution.

The baker’s family is not the only one in the village to have taken this precaution. Gregarious and popular, Mr Y is the owner of a battered white Peugeot that provides a useful taxi service. To his misfortune, someone took a photo on their mobile phone of a similar looking car last August, on a day when angry supporters of the Brotherhood converged on the local police station and burned it down. The police have been looking for Mr Y ever since.

Apparently unconvinced by protests from his family that Mr Y has never had anything to do with the Brothers, officers of the law keep barging into his house. For his own safety Mr Y has given up driving his taxi. He sleeps in the dense olive groves surrounding the village, only occasionally slipping home. He says he would like to give himself up and prove his innocence, but fears he will be dragged off to prison. That is what has happened to several other alleged Muslim Brothers in the village, while the former local Brotherhood MP has fled to Sudan. Not knowing what else to do, Mr Y’s family has put up signs affirming that they, too, will proudly vote YES.

Back in bustling Cairo, the government’s get-out-the-yes-vote campaign takes many forms. Funded by aid from rich Gulf states, make-work schemes have sent teams of workmen to pave and clean streets, paint bridge railings and otherwise tidy the accumulated clutter of post-revolutionary neglect. In the posh district of Zamalek, new stripes have appeared on some roads, although, in their haste to complete the make-over, painters have in places made the newly demarcated lanes converge dangerously, or stray off on collision course with the kerb.

The same impatience can be seen in efforts to ‘secure’ the voting from what Egypt’s media ceaselessly decry as Brotherhood terrorists and saboteurs. Overzealous police, for instance, took it upon themselves to arrest half a dozen fellows who were silly enough to think they might add a few posters counselling a no vote to the countless thousands chorusing YES. Some officials admit with a sigh that such security excesses threaten to undermine the legitimacy of the vote, if not the regime itself. Most, however, accuse the foreign press of being unfair. Why, they ask, do you stress such negative details rather than the bigger, positive picture of Egypt’s return to stability?

Significant sums of that generous Gulf aid have gone towards addressing this perceived image problem. Among several Washington public relations firms recently hired, one sent a film crew to Egypt to shoot some pretty footage of order and progress. Within hours of setting foot on the streets of Cairo, they were arrested.