It looks like Mubarak has seen the handwriting on the wall and is going to allow opposition in the September presidential election. When he made the announcement the crowd yelled out ``Long live Mubarak, mentor of freedom and democracy!‘’
It is just amazing how dictators have a way of coming around when you threaten to choke off their money.
It remains to be seen if the election really winds up being free and fair of course, but we have a real pattern here. Afghanistan, Georgia, Ukraine, Iraq, Palestine, even Saudia Arabia, after a fashion, and now Eqypt.
Every month it looks like the efforts to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East are as foolish as Reagan telling Gorbachev (sp?) to “tear done this wall.”
Amazing that you would include S. Arabia on the list when only men could vote. I think there is a reason why the elections got very little press here – because they were hardly up to democratic standards.
The bigger question is whether these elections will lead to results that we will ultimately accept. In Iraq, it seems like a reasonable chance that the country will be led by Jafari, who spent a good decade exiled in Iran and who wants a constitution based on Islamic (Shiite) law. Will we allow this regime to survive if it gets too close to Tehran? If history is any guide, I would bet that we’ll respect democracy when it benefits our interests and we’ll interfere when it doesn’t. If Jafari becomes PM and gets too cozy with Tehran, he’ll get ousted somehow and we’ll put a new man in place and we’ll act as if democracy is alive and well. Just a prediction.
I said Saudi Arabia after a fashion. It wasn’t much of an election there, but it was a spirited contest the people seemed to take seriously. Elections are insidious things. They can start out as being seemingly meaningless, but they have a way of morphing over time into actually determining who holds power. Mexico is an obvious, relatively recent example. Maybe Egypt will follow.
You really need to be more guarded in your cynicism. I remember the German press in 1987 (I think) when they ridiculed a very unpopular Reagan (at least in Germany) when he challenged Gorbechev to down the Berlin wall. Three or four years later, they had a united Germany.
People seldom vote to enslave themselves or subordinate their interests to those of another country. Even if they do once, if the democratic institutions stay intact, they will correct it in short order. One election, one time does not make a democracy.
Well, they have a strong opposition candidate, who happens to be in jail at this particular time. Rice raised an enormous stink about that, canceled a trip there, and triggered this announcement by Mubarak.
You are right in that there is a strong likelihood that this election won’t be free and fair, but any serious competition could lead to the following election being fair. Also keep in mind the recent example of the Ukraine. Once you let the genie out of the bottle, elections can be hard to steal.
Patience. Things are even breaking our way in Lebanon, of all places. Process is everything.
I’m always amazed at people who see a country moving in the right direction, and if the very first election cycle isn’t perfect, with strong opposing parties and a process above reproach, then they write the whole thing off as failure. Democracy, political pluralism, and free elections don’t happen overnight, and even small steps in the right direction are positive events.
Not so fast. This seems relevant to the discussion: From today’s NY Times:
“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday abruptly called off a planned trip to several Middle Eastern countries that had been scheduled for next week, a decision that came apparently because of the arrest of a leading Egyptian opposition politician last month. The decision highlighted a rift with an important ally over President Bush’s push for democratic change. It came a day after Mr. Bush’s tense meeting with Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, who was clearly uncomfortable with Mr. Bush’s criticism of Russia’s democracy. The linchpin for Ms. Rice’s trip had been a planned meeting in Cairo of foreign ministers for the Group of 8 industrial nations and the Arab League to discuss economic aid and democratic change in the Middle East. But that meeting was postponed by Egypt on Sunday in an early sign of the tensions that have been building even as the Bush administration has praised Egypt for its help in the Israeli-Palestinian mediation after Yasir Arafat’s death.”
A friend writes: This is what the Kos-sacks have left. They were enraged by the “stolen election” of 2000. Many of 'em opposed war in Afghanistan. Lost. They campaigned hard for the Democrats in 2002. Lost. Opposed war in Iraq. That happened anyway. They hoped for a quagmire. The statue came down in three weeks. They celebrated the hard times in Iraq. But they didn’t last forever. They bet all their chips and threw every last bit of effort into The Most Important Election of Our Lifetimes ™…and lost. And lost pretty resoundingly – the Left had to resort to hyping and celebrating Obama’s victory over Unmedicated Alan Keyes.
And now they see Iraqis happily voting.
Their entire worldview has collapsed. They’ve been left with nothing. No sign that the House or Senate will get any closer anytime soon. They’ve been shown evidence that they don’t have a majority of the American people; the great revolution just isn’t going to happen. And so they’re bitter. All they’ve got is hate.
And they’re looking for somebody to hit. Larry Summers is one. Susan Estrich’s explosion at Mike Kinsley is another example of this phenomenon. Jeff Gannon.
But this is what they’ve got…
Well, there does seem to be a pattern here. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal shines a spotlight on one frenzy referred to in the message above: “Feminists get hysterical.”
This is like a fight between the bolsheviks and the mensheviks, only more entertaining
Did you even read the rest of the article? That action by Rice is what finally triggered the decision. Mubarak isn’t exactly doing this out of the goodness of his heart. His hand is being forced.
