Mubarak Pushes Egypt to Conduct Freer Elelections

[Chicago Democrat]

Mubarak Pushes Egypt to Conduct Freer Elelections
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

Published: February 27, 2005


CAIRO, Feb. 26 - President Hosni Mubarak asked Egypt's Parliament on Saturday to amend the Constitution to allow for direct, multiparty presidential elections later this year for the first time in the nation's history.

On the face of it, the unexpected proposal from Mr. Mubarak, a former Air Force general who has ruled Egypt unchallenged since 1981, represents a sea change in a country with a 50-year history of autocratic, one-party governments.


"The president will be elected through direct, secret balloting, opening the opportunity for political parties to run in the presidential elections and providing guarantees that allow more than one candidate for the people to chose from with their own will," Mr. Mubarak said, speaking live on television before an audience at the University of Menoufiya in the Egyptian delta.

Some opposition politicians and other analysts hailed the proposal as heralding a new political era for Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, while skeptics said they wanted to await the details to be sure that the eventual constitutional amendment would not create only the appearance of democracy, a commonplace in the region.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/27/international/middleeast/27egypt.html?hp&ex=1109480400&en=044d01d498452312&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Chicago Democrat]

1. I wonder how many people they torture for us?

Egypt=A dictatorship that tortures its own people and whoever the US sends there.

Egypt=Makes me appreciate Israel.

[ECH1969]

2. Democracy in Egypt... Pft

We are supposed to be a democracy, yet we have Bush leading us.