A MONTH after Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s triumphant election as president (against no real opposition), his politics-weary people are still not sure what they are getting. Will the consecration in power of the former field-marshal echo the rise of Napoleon in post-revolutionary France? Does it mark instead the launch of a Second Republic, a more solid and perhaps more democratic replacement for the one that lasted from a military coup in 1952 until the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011? Or is the soft-spoken Mr Sisi simply a new face for the old regime, the figurehead of a Restoration?

There is evidence for all three. Mr Sisi has indeed looked imperious in his new role, seated impassively at grand rallies to celebrate the graduation of army and police cadets. Addressing the 108th class of Egypt’s military academy, his alma mater, which had mounted an artfully choreographed parade of bicycles that was bound to please Mr Sisi, a keen cyclist, the president sternly warned that Egypt’s troubles require sacrifices by every citizen. Dismissing his government’s proposed budget as too extravagant, he demanded further cuts. With Bonapartian panache, Mr Sisi then declared that he himself would forgo half his presidential salary and even half the family wealth inherited from his father, for the sake of the nation.

Such gestures play well to Egypt’s teeming masses of poor, just as the hospital visit Mr Sisi paid to the victim of a gang rape appeased citizens disturbed by a surge in sexual harassment on Egyptian streets. The poor may be less comforted when the cuts take effect via rising prices for energy, subsidies for which are nearly equal to Egypt’s current, yawning budget deficit of 12.5%. Economists as well as investors generally like Mr Sisi’s realistic appraisal of Egypt’s dire economic straits, but are wary of his populist, statist remedies, including the granting of giant public-works projects to the army. Despite a predictable rush by ambitious public figures to follow Mr Sisi’s lead by pledging personal sacrifices for the common good, few are likely to contribute to a national development fund that Mr Sisi has launched for this purpose.

Though cheerleading for the president dominates Egyptian airwaves, qualms are growing even among those who initially backed Mr Sisi and applauded his overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood a year ago. Signs of creeping authoritarianism are increasingly plain. By some estimates, as many as 40,000 people, many of them Brotherhood sympathisers and members, have been arrested in the past year. There is widespread evidence of severe abuse in police custody. The young activists who inspired the 2011 uprising against Mr Mubarak have been hounded. And show trials, such as the one that recently ended in the conviction of three television journalists (including an Australian and a Canadian) to hefty prison sentences on trumped-up terrorism charges, have appalled Western governments—all the more so since John Kerry, America’s secretary of state, was in Cairo, urging Mr Sisi to show clemency and respect human rights, the day before the journalists were sentenced.

Attempts to stifle dissent have also meant the sacking of thousands of mosque preachers, the banning of television stations and programmes deemed too independent, and the quiet blacklisting of critics, including Egypt’s best-known novelist, Alaa al-Aswani, a fierce secularist and early supporter of Mr Sisi. In yet another sign of this trend, education authorities on June 25th overturned a post-revolutionary reform that allowed for the deans and presidents of state universities to be elected. They will henceforth be appointed, as they were under Mr Mubarak.

Hopes are not high that the election of a new parliament, expected in late summer, will return much accountability to government. A complex new law expands Egypt’s legislature to an unwieldy 567 members, 120 of them to be elected under a winner-takes-all party list system, 27 appointed by the president and the rest as individual candidates. Given the banning of the Muslim Brotherhood and the lack of other strong parties with nationwide followings, the formula looks set to perpetuate the legislative hold of powerful clans and local businessmen. As during the 30-year reign of Mr Mubarak, when many MPs elected as individuals immediately joined the ruling party machine, the incoming assembly is more likely to curry favour with Mr Sisi than to contest his policies.

Mr Sisi has not, so far, paid much of a price at home or abroad for his seeming slide into strongman rule. With the Muslim Brotherhood on its back heels, domestic opposition is scattered and unfocused. Rich Gulf countries continue to bolster his government; King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia pointedly dropped in recently for a quick chat with Mr Sisi aboard his royal aircraft. And the African Union, which suspended Egypt as a member after last year’s coup, has invited it back in; Mr Sisi is to address its imminent annual summit.

Western donors will find it harder to ignore public opinion, as Mr Kerry found to his embarrassment when he announced a release of aid to Egypt, only to be blindsided the next day by the harsh sentences given to the Al Jazeera journalists.