Blogging the democratic revolution
Even with the winner a foregone conclusion, the unprecedented multi-candidate presidential elections in Egypt started today. The official campaign period for Egypt’s landmark presidential election opened Wednesday. Ten men, including sitting President Hosni Mubarak, are vying for the presidency in the country’s first multi-candidate election. The three leading contenders for the presidency all scheduled rallies…
Yesterday Robert posted an entry, Pro-Mubarak Thugs Beat Up Kefaya Protesters, dealing with the attempt by democracy activists in Egypt to hold a rally and Hosni Mubarak’s violent reaction. There is also an article in today’s New York Times (registration required) on this, so I won’t go into the details. I wanted to add that…
Jim Hoft is rounding up all the news on this. In other news, the candlelight vigil against terrorism being organized by Egyptian bloggers was cancelled. Big Pharaoh posts his reaction. Egyptian Sandmonkey is also feeling melancholy, and so is Karim Elsahy. Better luck next time guys, I wish it would have worked out.
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…
This is a roundup for the Egyptian blogosphere (plus some other Arab blogs) and the protests against terrorism which they are organizing. I’ll be updating this post as I get new links. I would like to note that I was in Luxor, Egypt in December 1997, shortly after the gunning down of foreign tourists at…
Last Tuesday I posted an entry about Egypt, Egypt Legalizes Moderate Islamist Movement, which suggested a watershed event for the Wasat (Center) Party, a moderate Islamist front. I also posted the same entry on my blog, and a reader who is apparently from Egypt made the point that there is still a level of review…
Big Pharaoh posts what he thinks each religion should do in order to make the world a better place. There are many I don’t agree with, but then again, I find some of them both agreeable and hilarious. Allah does not give a dead rat’s ass about a girl’s hair. If you’re sexually excited when…
Kirk let me know about this a couple of days ago. It’s interesting, because you see several groups ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to Kifaya coming together to put a crack in the current system. This is a trend in all authoritarian countries with emerging oppositions, but nonetheless, these are some unlikely temporary bedfellows. In…
Al-Hayat has reported that an Egyptian court has legalized a moderate Islamist political movement (“Egypt: Judge Qubtay Grants Islamist Party a License by Decree“). Under Egyptian law, political organizations have to have a license to operate, and the country’s largest Islamist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, is still denied one. This decree means that the New…
Big Pharaoh posts this. I think it’s extremely revealing and effective. It shows the progress of female status in Egyptian society over the years. 1900-1920 1920-1940 1940-1975 2005 2020? 2050?
Kirk just yesterday wrote a great article detailing the way that the U.S. strategy is moving forward to deal with political reform in Egypt. I think linking our aid to moves in the direction of sustained political openness is definitely the best way to go. In light of reading his article, I though I’d check…
I have traditionally been a supporter of the foreign aid that the United States gives to the Egyptian government, mainly on the premise that the soft authoritarianism of Hosni Mubarak’s government was the only alternative to an Islamist takeover which could throw the region into war. Following the 9/11 attacks and further reflection, however, I…
It is not unusual for countries to have “rubber-stamp” parliaments, but they don’t usually make it as obvious as Egypt does. I recently posted a roundup on Egypt’s ruff-up of the opposition in the recent referendum meant to endorse a change to the election law which would superficially allow for open elections while in reality…
It has been widely reported that the referendum on Egypt’s new electoral system was marred by violence. The referendum was passed with 82% of the vote with 54% participation amid a widespread boycott by both Islamist and secularist opposition parties. Meanwhile, multiple accounts were given of opposition protesters being physically attacked by supporters of President…
While the French are doing their level best to scuttle the EU constitution, Egyptian voters go to the polls today to vote on a referendum to clear the way to multi party presidential elections: CAIRO, Egypt (AP) – President Hosni Mubarak urged Egyptians to vote in Wednesday’s referendum on constitutional changes that would clear the…
Egypt’s parliament has just passed a resolution which will set May 25 as the day the Egyptian population will vote to amend the constitution so as to provide for multi-candidate presidential elections. The resolution was endorsed by a huge majority of parliament, though this is because it was proposed by Mubarak and his party dominates….
Instapundit alerts us to a Babes of Cairo sighting, see it here.
Recently here on Publius Pundit we had a spirited discussion about democratic reform in Egypt, with me warning of the dangers of the Muslim Brotherhood using elections as an opening to come to power and create an Islamist state, a Sunni equivalent of what we face in Iran right now. My initial post, Egypt: Democracy…
Thousands of Egyptian students have demonstrated against the government in what is being called the largest protest in Egypt to date. The students – mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood movement – marched at five campuses in Cairo and the Nile Delta. Hundreds of police prevented them from taking their protests outside university gates onto the…
Defying a ban against unauthorized rallies, several hundred people took to the street. Hundreds of supporters of one of Egypt??????s largest opposition groups have defied a government ban against unauthorized protests and taken to the streets of Cairo to demonstrate. Ahead of landmark elections, dozens of Muslim Brotherhood officials chanted that President Hosni Mubarak was…
My post yesterday questioning whether opening elections to the Muslim Brotherhood might bring about disaster got more responses than any other post I have done on Publius Pundit. I felt that some of the issues raised by the comments had sufficient significance for democratic development theory to justify a full post response. (To read my…
Those in the United States and elsewhere who are pushing hard for the spread of democracy around the globe (including Publius Pundit) may soon get their toughest test yet. Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak recently made a much publicized announcement that the constitution was to be amended to allow for genuinely competitive presidential elections. Today the…
Arthur Chrenkoff has a special roundup of recent events in the Middle East that he has dubbed the “Pro-Democracy Edition.” And in that respect, you should definitely check it out. For an older post in this same regards, check here if you haven’t seen it already.
The fourth straight week after Friday prayer? Interesting. Hundreds of men and women shouted slogans against the Egyptian government and clashed with security forces Friday in a protest against the mass detention and alleged torture of relatives suspected in last year’s Sinai resort bombings. Some 500 protesters demonstrated after Friday prayers outside the al-Rifai mosque,…
This is certainly a positive development. CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt on Saturday released on bail Ayman Nour, an opposition leader detained since the end of January and whose jailing aroused Washington’s concern. Scores of people, waving orange Ghad (Tomorrow) party flags, cheered Nour as he left a Cairo detention center after supporters paid his bail…