One of the hotel's main saferooms, which was packed with guests and Afghan members of parliament, filled with smoke from a fire in the kitchen.
The new constitution was to have both a prime minister indirectly elected by a parliament, filled partly by proportional representation, and a directly elected "executive president".
He monopolised power, intimidated his opponents, sidelined parliament, filled independent institutions like the constitutional court with his lackeys, and gave the security services free rein to kill, kidnap and torture.
But on July 24th, within hours of the sudden end from cancer of Ghana's president, John Atta Mills, his deputy, John Mahama, was sworn in with impressive constitutional calmness to replace him.The most unusual sight was the square outside the country's parliament filled with 48 large ambulances.
Inside, though, the soaring hall of blond Norwegian wood glows from light bulbs suspended from the ceiling, and the men and women of the Sami parliament fill the halls and corridors with a warming blur of color from the blue, red, green and yellow patterns of their clothing.
Today, for example, Afghan women "make up one-quarter of parliament, fill one-third of the nation's classrooms and even compete on Afghan Idol".
Parliament is filled by proportional representation from party lists.
Only 249 of the 290 seats in the Parliament were filled.
This week the papers and parliament were filled with uninformed wittering on sex education.
But with a parliament likely filled with Mr Sisi's supporters, the chance of real debate looks slim.
