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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:37
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Itw as close man, only 88% of the vote....people were sweating in Cairo over this one.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast...s.ap/index.html
quote:
Mubarak declared winner of Egypt election
Friday, September 9, 2005; Posted: 2:34 p.m. EDT (18:34 GMT)
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- President Hosni Mubarak was officially declared the victor of Egypt's first contested presidential elections on Friday -- but the vote was marred by a lower than expected turnout of 23 percent.
The low participation reflected widespread skepticism among Egyptians over the government's claims that the election opens the door to greater democratic reform -- and apathy over a vote that Mubarak was certain to win.
Before Wednesday's election, officials in Mubarak's ruling party said they hoped at least 30 percent of the 32 million registered voters would cast ballots.
The 77-year-old Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for 24 years, had won a new six-year term with 88.571 percent of the vote, the head of the elections commission, Mahmoud Marie, told reporters, announcing the final results.
Second place went to Ayman Nour of the opposition Al-Ghad party, with 7.3 percent of the vote.
The other main opposition candidate, Noaman Gomaa of the Wafd Party, received 2.8 percent.
The election was the first ever in which Mubarak faced a competitor after years of being re-elected in "yes-no" referendums ini which he was the sole candidate.
His government has touted the change as a major democratic reform, and as a candidate Mubarak promised further change. But opponents were skeptical, with most major parties boycotting the election.
Widespread violations were reported by voters, opposition groups and independent monitors during the balloting -- particularly strong pressure from officials and other on voters to back Mubarak. But the election saw none of the violence or overt vote rigging that has plagued past parliamentary elections.
Marie, who is the top judge on Egypt's highest court, said the vote was clean and that allegations of violations came out of "over-enthusiasm in a nascent experiment that will be the cornerstone in the construction of democracy."
On Thursday, Nour demanded the election be repeated because of the allegations, but the commission -- which reform-minded judges have accused of being dominated by the government -- rejected the request.
Third-place finisher Gomaa said Friday his party would put together a list of the election violations it witnessed and present them to the commission. But, speaking to Al-Jazeera television, he acknowledged that the violations were not enough to affect Mubarak's victory.
His party's newspaper, Al-Wafd, highlighted alleged irregularities that marred the vote but still hailed the vote as the birth of democracy in Egypt.
"The people have woken up and they are not going to go back to sleep," a lead editorial in the paper said.
Pro-government newspapers on Friday trumpeted Mubarak's victory as opening a new era of reform.
"History will dedicate pages to Mubarak," gushed Al-Ahram's editor, Osama Saraya, in a frontpage column.
In Lebanon, the editor of the left-wing newspaper As-Safir said the polls were "more than a referendum, but less than an election."
"There is no way to deny the importance of the event," said As-Safir editor-in-chief Joseph Samaha. But he said the election was marred by "the bias of the state apparatus, the unfairness of the election commission, rigging and mistakes."
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. |
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Ecthy
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Zhonghuà Rénmín Gònghéguó
Mar 2000
time: 06:37
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Yeah, give it time, same for Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The case of Iraq is, of course, a completely different one. Give it time and enter hell on earth.
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Ecthy
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Zhonghuà Rénmín Gònghéguó
Mar 2000
time: 06:37
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The emphasis being on many people talking, not on possible irregularities.
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VetLegion
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quote:
That's what happened in Algeria in 1992. For the first time, the elections were free and fair. The Islamists won a clear victory, and they were barred from rising to power. This is actually why the Algerian Islamists completely stopped believing in peaceful rpocess, and this is why the Algerian civil war was triggered. |
In what state is the conflict now? There aren't any news from Algeria lately. A lull?
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:37
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Kuci, once again, you jump to conclusions.
Actually, it's not the Islamist rise to power that scares me. If experience is anything to go by, the Turks currently have "Islamists" leading their country, and they're very mellow compared to the archetypal ones (the Taleban).
I fear more the reaction of the military, should their unfavoured candidate win. In many North African countries, including Egypt, the military can easily stage a coup if it feels that the stability of the country is threatened. That's because the military often has no trust whatsoever in democracy.
When the military steps in, stages a coup, and kills the democratization process, great problems happen. It nearly happened in Ukraine last year. It is a very tangible threat in North African countries.
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Kills what democratization process? I don't see any democracy. |
We'll use western examples for you to understand what a democratization process is like.
A country that had a democratization process in the 19th century is Britain. And Britain has avoided most of the political turmoil that occured in Europe during that century (especially in 1848). Britain's internal struggles were mostly economic in nature, or were about minorities. The slow progression towards democracy: the slow erosion of the power of the king, the slow progression of suffrage, from being only in the hands of the nobles and the rich at the beginning, to being in the hands of everybody at the end... Well, that was a democratization process, and a remarkably quiet one.
Comapre this with France. Revolutionary France is typically a country completely unprepared for democracy, which had democratic reforms brutally shoved down their throats. As a result, the elected leaders still intrigued like in the old regime, the winners believed they could do everything they wanted, because, hey, they won. The King made no compromise at all. And the opponents to the new regime started a civil war. As you know, revolutionary France wasn't exactly a wonderful democracy to look at. And the political organization it created died 10 years after anyway, when Napoleon took power*.
Maybe, with these examples, you can understand that democracy is not an "on/off" button. You don't switch easily.
*The reason why France has grown into a modern democracy at the end of the 19th century is because of a transitional regime: the 3rd Republic was intended as a transitional regime before the king could reign again over France, after Napoleon III's defeat. In the end, the possible king alienated even his supporters, which is why he didn't came to power - the 3rd Republic had to progressively build a democratic order. Incidentally, the main attempt to make it quick, the Paris Commune, was drowned in blood.
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:37
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quote:
Originally posted by GePap
Moving fast towards democracy was not the problem in Algeria. The military stagging a coup that lead to a civil war that killed at least 100,000 people, THAT weas the problem. |
Yes. As you might notice, the two are related. I personally dislike the idea of pushing back democracy and killing thousands for the sake of ideology.
As an aside, during the last presidential elections in Algeria, the military refused to officially support someone for the first time  (the unofficial support went to Buteflika's opponent). In Turkey, we see an increasing role of the civilian authorities as the democratization process, very timid at the beginning, shows that it is working.
Egypt has changed its internal policies quite recently. IIRC, Egypt has stopped being in state of emergency this year (Hint: state of emergency, among other things, generally makes the leader above all criticism, because the leader has to be tough to fight the enemy, and cannot be weakened from within).
A few months after this news, we have a contested election where demonstrations were allowed, including regular demonstrations hostile to Mubarak. We have a contested election where people, be the politicians, boycotters or voters, speak their mind and now hope in reform, even though everbody knew that that particular election wouldn't change the leader.
That's a serious progress. In only a few months, we went from an age-long political stagnation to a revival of politics. If the evolution of political mentalities continues at this pace in Egypt, the country might well be mature for democracy in two terms (10 years).
Last edited by Spiffor on 10-09-2005 at 14:22
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Apolyton Time is 00:37. |
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09-09-2005 23:45
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