[quote=“Mucha Man”][quote=“Herodotus”]I’m not sure this is really over. Moses crossed the Red Sea to Sinai when he was 80 years old. Mubarak has crossed over at a still sprightly 82.
And he used to get his orders from a talking Bush.[/quote]
Good one. 
[/quote]
:bravo: :bravo:
Hmm. Don’t know what to make of this.
[quote=“Jerusalem Post”]Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood said Saturday that it will not run for the presidency and will not seek to get a majority in the parliament. The announcement was an attempt to reaffirm that it was not seeking power in the Egyptian parliament.
The group praised the efforts of the new army rulers to transfer power to civilians.
“The Muslim Brotherhood … are not seeking personal gains, so they announce they will not run for the presidency and will not seek to get a majority in the parliament and that they consider themselves servants of these decent people,” a statement read.
“We support and value the sound direction that the Higher Military Council is taking on the way to transfer power peacefully to create a civilian government in line with the will of the people,” the statement continued. [/quote]
The military isn’t their friend, and is pretty clearly sitting in the driver’s seat after all this. It would seem wise for them to play their hand conservatively, for the time being at least. Acting directly as a political party isn’t the only way to exert their influence.
Th armed forces have always been in a commanding role since King Farouk was toppled. Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak rose to power, and held that power due primarily to playing off connections among factions within the armed forces.
[quote=“BBC”]Egyptians have strongly backed constitutional changes that will allow the country to move quickly on to elections.
Official results show that 77% of voters in Saturday’s referendum backed the changes.
[…]
A parliamentary vote may now take place as early as September.
Mohammed Ahmed Attiyah, the head of the supreme judicial committee who supervised the vote, said 18.5 million people who voted supported the changes. Turnout was 41.2 % of the 45 million eligible voters.
[b]The changes include:
• Reducing presidential terms from six years to four years and limiting the president to two terms
• Obliging the president to choose a deputy within 30 days of election
• Installing new criteria for presidential candidates, including a rule that they must be over 40 years old and not married to a non-Egyptian
[/b]
Cries of jubilation from Egyptian journalists caught us off-guard as we heard the referendum result announced at an otherwise unusually orderly news conference. One man told me that an honest turnout statistic alone was reason for celebration. “Just imagine the lies we were told in the past, if it was only 41% with those long queues,” he commented.
In Tahrir Square, the focus of protests that overthrew the president, there was greater division. An angry group opposed to the constitutional changes revived their revolutionary slogan, “illegitimate”. “We need a new constitution,” they shouted. There was criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood, which called for a “yes” vote and is expected to benefit from it.
Others watching from the sidelines called for the demonstrations to stop. “We’re just showing ourselves to be nervous and vengeful,” said Ahmed Mustafa. “All of must accept this and begin to build our country.”
The country’s two main political groups, Mr Mubarak’s National Democratic Party and the Muslim Brotherhood, backed the proposals.
[…]
Pro-democracy activists said the changes did not go far enough and wanted the constitution to be entirely rewritten before elections could be held.[/quote]A quick poll favours established organizations rather than the ad hoc groups responsible for getting people on the street: I get that. But what’s up with the disqualification of anyone married to a non-Egyptian?
Oh you know how it is, caint truhst dem furriners.
Nice start. [quote=“NYT: Mubarak Is Detained for Questioning”]Egypt said that the former president and his two sons are being held for 15 days in a corruption and abuse-of-power inquiry. [/quote] :discodance:
Simply beautiful. Where else should the leaders of a tortuous regime go to retire?[quote=“NYT: As Inmates 23 and 24, Stunned Mubaraks Adjust”][b]The prison is called Tora Farm, but there is nothing agricultural about it. It is a two-story block of poured concrete, and for years its massive gray walls have held those deemed enemies of the powerful.
Now they hold the full tableau of state power under President Hosni Mubarak: Gamal Mubarak, a prince of the political scene, now prisoner No. 23, and his older brother, Alaa, leader among the business elite, prisoner No. 24; the prime minister, Ahmed Nazif, a patrician man who once said Egyptians were not ready for democracy; Zakaria Azmi, the president’s closest confidant; Fathi Sorour, the party loyalist and speaker of Parliament; and more.
They make docile inmates, their captors say, still stunned to find themselves behind bars.[/b] They eat food brought from outside, the right of any detainee who has not been convicted. But Gamal appears badly shaken and often refuses to eat. He shares a cell with Alaa.
“Bear in mind they are very broken,” said a prison official who described the situation inside and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “They do everything they are asked. They don’t raise their voices.”
The former president is not in Tora Farm, but he has been detained, and if his health improves, he is expected there soon. Officials said Saturday that the elder Mr. Mubarak had been moved to a military hospital in Cairo and that, like all the others, he would be interrogated by a special corruption unit within the state prosecutor’s office. In Tahrir Square, people crowded the newspaper seller, staring at the headlines declaring that on Tuesday Mr. Mubarak would be questioned again.
[…]
The men in custody represent the core of the power structure, not just the head.
With its leaders jailed, the once-supreme National Democratic Party has already been relegated to history, but Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court made it official on Saturday, ruling that the party would be dissolved and its assets seized by the government.
But it is also a bittersweet moment for Egyptians, many people said. They sense that even if these fallen power brokers are tried before a court, and even if they are convicted and sentenced, though it may help settle the past, it will not provide a clearer path to the future.
“I am not sure that this in itself is going to make us move forward, because so far we have not moved forward, we have been walking with our heads backwards, looking to the past, talking about what happened, putting people on trial,” said Mohamed Salmawy, a novelist and head of the writers union. “But the actual constructive effort has not yet begun, and I personally don’t know why it is being postponed.”[/quote]
I recall hearing something very like that last bit before, and not liking it then either. Fine sentiment, insofar as it goes. But justice demands more, and there isn’t a politically compelling reason for shelving it here.