PoliticsEgypt: Military junta: Disqualifies 3 leading Prez candidates and 7 more out of 23

Egypt's military junta has arrogated to itself the role of arbiter for acceptable candidacies to the office of the country's President, after the displacement of former dictator Hosni Mubarek.  The Presidential election is scheduled for May 23-24.

An interesting development in the wake of the junta's action is the possiblity of a split between two potential candidates with Muslim Brotherhood backgrounds.  A third MB figure is among the leading disqualifieds, Khairat el-Shater (English spellings vary), who had been incarcerated as a criminal under the previous Mubarek régime.  At first the Brotherhood had planned not to run any candidate at all, which incensed a prominant member to leave the organization, Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh, currently Secretary-General of the Arab Medical Union, and considered by some to be "a moderate."

   Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh Abdel Hady

Dr. Fitouh left the Muslim Brotherhood and its political wing called the Freedom and Justice Party (headed by Mohammed Mursi).  After the MB's externally-sudden shift from non-contestant in the election to favour the running of its own candidate, it nominated as well an alternative but emphasized Kairat el-Shater as its first choice.  The Brotherhood was aware of El-Shater's disfavour with the junta, since the Mubarek days.

  

   Kairat el-Shater

Pictured in a photo (above, AP photo by Nasser Nasser), El- Shater on Friday called for "a million-man march" to "the [public] squares of liberation again to complete the march of the revolution."  The cagey MB, named alongside El-Shater alternative candidate Mursa in order to have a back-up plan;  apparently he had gained no  criminal status.

   

   Omar Suleiman

Another of the 3 leading disqualifeds, Omar Suleiman was "spy chief" for Mubarek and briefly served as stand-in when Mubarek was forced to stand down.  Suleiman has h+ standing with the junta, as a result, but low esteem among Islamicists and Salafists.

The third of the leading candidates dumped by the military thru its puppet electoral commission is Hazen Abu Ismail who is "an ultra-conservative Salafist," an Islamicist ideology which woud impose a strict and punitive Sharia-law régime.  Civil r+ts woud be curtailed severely, and the extermination of Christians and homosexuals seem to be major intentions.  In comparison, the Muslim Brotherhood is somet+ms laid out as "pragmatic Islamicism" — evoking a parallel to the ruling Islamicist party of Turkey, the latter also in conflict with its military over secularism.  But the comparison between ideological puritianism and Muslim pragmatism does not hold up well.  

   Amr Moussa, World Policy Conference, December 2k11

Interestingly, while the 3 and another 7 have been disqualified, another figure, one active in government under Mubarek,  Amr Moussa, had left his post as foreign minister to become Secretary-General of the Arab League (which itself is now trying to end Syrian govt repression, after the organization had largely supported the previous Egyptian repression under Mubarek, and that of Sudan before the secession of South Sudan).  The junta disqualified anyone who had been part of the Mubarek régime during the last 10 years; Moussa changed posts 11 years ago.  So he has not been disqualified (yet) from running.  Among all the candidates, he seems most l+kly to work for internal peace in Egypt, including perhaps a more conciliatory approach to the country's 6 million Christians who are largely on the outs+d of the political process, living in dread of an Islamicist repression that seems to be waiting in the wings.

Also, at this juncture, the process of wr+ting a new Constitution for the country has been delayed; Parliament has not been assembled, and the 100 member commission for Constitution wr+ting is being boycotted by the 2-person delegation to represent Christians, becawz the process is considered by them and many secularists, to be a sham.  Individual and communal liberty will not be guaranteed to those not locked into the Islamic fortress-mentality.  (On this, please see ForeignPolicy.com, Apr16,2k12); also ComparativeConstitutions.org email newsletter, Apr16,2k12.)

At present, refWr+t is endorsing a Muslim non-Islamicist, Amr Moussa, for President of Egypt.

— Politicarp, refWrite's frontpage politics columnist

Follow @Owlb, refWrite frontpage general editor

Cross-posted to refWrite-experimental.

Main news sources & background materials: 

"Mass protests brewing in Egypt, after 3 leading Presidential candidates are disqualified," by Patrick Goodenough (Apr16,2k12) CNSnews.com

"Egypt's transition imbroglio" by Nathan Brtown (Apr16,2k11) Foreign Policy via ComparativeConstitutions email newsletter

Wikipedia — articles on Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, Omar Suleiman & Amr Moussa

YouTube (see refWr+t's YouTube collection of politics videos yUT2ube — subscribe!)

Huffington Post (Feb10,2k11)

Egypt labor strikes break out 

across the country; protesters defiant

AP/The Huffington Post Posted: 02/ 9/11 02:45 PM

CAIRO - Thousands of state workers and impoverished Egyptians launched strikes and protests around the country on Wednesday over their economic woes as anti-government activists sought to expand their campaign to oust President Hosni Mubarak despite warnings from the vice president that protests won't be tolerated much longer.

Some 8,000 protesters, mainly farmers, set barricades of flaming palm trees in the southern province of Assiut, blocking the main highway and railway to Cairo to complain of bread shortages. They then drove off the governor by pelting his van with stones. Hundreds of slum dwellers in the Suez Canal city of Port Said set fire to part of the governor's headquarters in anger over lack of housing.

Efforts by Vice President Omar Suleiman to open a dialogue with protesters over reforms have broken down since the weekend, with youth organizers of the movement deeply suspicious that he plans only superficial changes far short of real democracy. They refuse any talks unless Mubarak steps down first.

PoliticsEgypt: Transition: New leader steps in, Mubarak retreats, Army in control

Developments in Egypt include the appointment of old-pro Omar Suleiman as 'vice president' (acting prez); he promptly met with with a delegation heavy with Muslim Brotherhood reps, and select leaders of the 5 youth movements who organized and conducted the protests.  Hardliners, including much of the youth movement, want Mubarak to resign and leave town and country now; Suleiman may be temporarily suitable as negotiation partner, without an Egyptian head of state, mostly becawz the opposition forces need a contact point with the Army (Christian Science Monitor, Ariel Zirulnick).

Vice President Suleiman has now met with opposition leaders, the outcome of which has been a revision of the revolution's primary demand that Egypt's official President, 82-yr old Hosni Mubarak, leave office immediately (so, Egypt woud be without an official head of State), and preferably leave the country altogether.  Here seems to be the revised stance:

The shift by opposition leaders followed the clearest signals yet from the Obama administration that its call for a quick transition in Egypt did not include a demand that Mubarak step aside before elections this fall (Washington Post, Feb7,2k11, Craig Whitlock and Griff Witte).  

I have felt, at my safe distance and lack of depth-involvement, that there's a kernel of wisdom in not knocking Mubarak from the throne of his dictatorship, leaving zero continuity between old and the new which is coming but which coud be worse than at present, were the resulting vacuum to be filled by the Muslim Brotherhood (sharia law, etc).

Among those who joined for the first time in talks with Omar Suleiman ... were leaders from the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement, along with a loose coalition of political parties, intellectuals and protest organizers. Suleiman said the government would agree to consider broad changes, including constitutional amendments and a possible end to Egypt's three-decade-old state of emergency. ...

In a television interview, Suleiman made it clear that the government's willingness to consider the changes was based on an expectation that Mubarak would stay in charge during a drawn-out transition to a new government ... in September.

"If President Mubarak would say that 'I'm leaving now,' who would take over?" Suleiman said on ABC. "I think with this atmosphere, that means that the other people who have their own agenda will make instability in our country."  

The political desire of the mass of demonstrators nevertheless seems not to have been much met, as the experience of unfettered revolutionary action seems to have expanded the desire of a broad spectrum of participants.  The net result is that there is a difference between the leadership which has met with Suleiman,  and the now more-than-ever revolutionary motivation of a large sector of the crowds on the streets.

-- Politicarp