Blogging the democratic revolution
Three decades after the late President Anwar Sadat announced the infitah, or economic opening, of Egypt, has the Gift of the Nile finally fulfilled predictions in becoming an economic Tiger on the Nile? A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reported that Egypt’s stock market has risen 32% this year, the fastest…
CLIFFNOTES: 1) Mubarak’s announcement and actions seek to legitimize his own government, not reform. 2) Opposition has little time to develop a massive grass roots campaign. 3) This does open a window for regime change if actions outside of Mubarak’s control occur. Alright, so I’m a little skeptical. From the Christian Science Monitor: BEIRUT AND…
Egypt’s president for life, or at least the last 24 years is now calling for multi-candidate elections. He is requesting a national referendum to open up the September presidential rubber stamp. My take over at Bloggledygook: This is a very shrewd move by Mubarak, who has been snubbed just this last week by Secretary of…
This is Egypt, a country I’m not too familiar with in terms of the political situation. So you’ll have to judge for yourselves on the character of the prostesters. CAIRO (Reuters) – Several hundred Egyptians protested in central Cairo on Monday in the largest street demonstration since the launch last year of a campaign against…
Big Pharoah has a “joke of the day” for all of us. Of course, it isn’t really that funny: I have a lovely habit. Every morning I pick up my Al Ahram paper, the number one paper in Egypt, to see how they prioritize their headlines on the front page. This tends to give me…
Big Pharoah from Egypt posts why he hopes that the “Iraq tsunami” of democracy doesn’t hit Egypt just yet: Several people emailed me right after Iraq’s election telling me that they hope that Egypt would one day witness such a day. I too hope this but I have to be very cautious as to when…
Daniel Drezner writes about the mention of Egypt in the SOTU address last night. The lines about Egypt and Saudi Arabia were nicely phrased, in that they represented a challenge to the regimes there. Coincidentally enough, the Wall Street Journal has a front-pager by Karby Leggett on Egypt’s economic reforms. From the opening, it appears…