Egypt Announces Multiparty Elections
Why is this relegated to the last line on CNN? This seems like some of the biggest news of the year, and could be a direct result of US policy in the region combined with local groundswell. If true this could also be the biggest success of Bush’s policy to date. It appears that Mubarak has called for multi party elections for the office of president for the first time since the 1952 revolution deposed the monarchy to install a non-hereditary monarchy, often known as a dictatorship, but since they are the second largest recipient of US aid in the world we can’t really call it that.
There have been strong calls for a more democratic and open process in Egypt for years, but the calls have become much louder in the past few months with the elections in Iraq and Palestine. In particular Egypt recently arrested Ayman Nour a member of Parliment who was advocating multi party elections. The US has strongly criticized this for the last few weeks, and has of course been “encouraging democratic reforms” in the region for years now. I wonder if this added pressure, plus the locals wondering why if Iraq and Palestine, two countries under occupation, can have open and fair elections that they can not, have led to this announcement? Now to be fair, Mubarak was elected in the first place as was Arafat and Saddam. So taking this from an announcement through real open and fair elections is a looooong walk, and in addition this reform is only for the office of the president, but parliament has had other reforms recently, so I see this as a very hopeful sign for the most populous Arab nation.
Think he did this so Gamal can run in an open election?
And he wasn’t elected, he was appointed. Nasr appointed Sadat as VP who took over upon Nasr’s death. When Sadat became president, he appointed Mubarak.
There really was never an ‘election’ per se.
I could see this being so Gamal could run in an open election, that’s true. And you are correct, he was never elected into office, but he does have the usual voter referendum on do you still want him yes/no type thing that they (strongmen) always do. They need to feel like their people love them.