In the wake of terrorist bombings against his country, Egypt’s President Mubarak has declared his candidacy in the upcoming presidential elections. Not that there was any doubt that he’d run for a fifth term, but now he has a platform to go on.

President Hosni Mubarak announced his bid yesterday to run in Egypt’s first multicandidate elections on Sept. 7, promising new legislation to “besiege” terrorism and replace the country’s much-criticized emergency laws.

Mubarak, 77, Egypt’s leader for almost a quarter of a century and a key U.S. ally in the Arab world, has cast himself as a moderating influence in the turbulent Middle East.

He won four presidential referendums as the sole candidate. But amid local and U.S.-led calls for greater freedoms in the Middle East, Mubarak directed the parliament this year to amend Egypt’s constitution to allow for direct presidential elections open to more than one candidate.

While the move was initially hailed by pro-democracy proponents, opposition activists have since complained that the amendments did not go far enough and, instead, placed almost insurmountable restrictions on people wanting to challenge Mubarak.

The speech he gave in front of his old high school outside of Cairo was reminiscent of my run for student council in the ninth grade. He stressed his ability to provide security “first and last.” Alright, maybe quite a bit different from my own campaign, but it was really the first time an incumbent president has ever had to act like he’s running for office. Liberal opposition leader Ayman Nour was the first to apply for candidacy when the offices opened, and he is seen as the chief opposition to Mubarak.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour on Friday applied to stand against President Hosni Mubarak in presidential elections on September 7, arriving early in the hope of having his name at the top of the ballot papers.

Nour, leader of the liberal Ghad (Tomorrow) Party, told Reuters his group was the first to turn up at the headquarters of the Presidential Election Commission when it opened to receive nomination papers in the morning.

But he failed to obtain any assurance that the names would be listed in the order in which candidates submitted their papers or even that they would be in alphabetical order, he said. In Arabic, Nour would come before Mubarak alphabetically.

“There was a disagreement on that point. The chairman of the commission (judge Mamdouh Marei) said the commission would study the matter,” he said by telephone.

A delegate for Mubarak turned up later to present the president’s own papers, the state news agency MENA said.

The basis of multi-candidate presidential elections have to be seen in the context of American pressure for greater liberalization in the country, despite the fact that Mubarak will likely win without any trouble. In general, the strategy is to allow reform to slowly take place so that civil society can develop and overtake sympathy with radical Islamists. The first step of this, as with what happened in Chile under Pinochet, is to completely reform the economy. Mubarak did this in 2004 with his new cabinet, and it has sent the stock market soaring with investment pouring in. This has a liberalizing effect all by itself.

The next step is encouraging a liberal civil society while making sure that radical elements don’t hijack the country. Mubarak’s address, most importantly, said that he would end all of the emergency laws in the country which allow the government to suppress all dissent. In conjunction with that, he said he wold adopt harsh anti-terrorist laws to combat those forces inside the country. Effectively, this means that the government will be trying to suppress radical Islamist movements while the system becomes open for liberal candidates and discussion. The creation of vibrant, liberal civil society is the most important thing that can be done as elections come into play.

Ayman Nour will most likely not even come close to winning, but it will open a debate within Egyptian society. Debate itself is what has been missing, and it is the one thing that can begin the transition. Suddenly, we’ll no longer have the dissent stifling authoritarian government of Mubarak versus insane Islamic radicals, but a slowly reforming authoritarian regime competing in the marketplace of ideas with the expanding notion of liberalism. All of this, while terrorism takes a back seat to progress.