MUBARAK TO ALLOW THE PRESENCE OF OPPOSITION PARTIES IN UPCOMING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
New York Times, February 27, 2005

President Hosni Mubarak called for Egypt’s Parliament to amend Article 76 of the Constitution regarding how the President is chosen to allow for opposition candidates to run in the presidential election to be held later in the year. The move came after strong pressure from the United States as well as from Egypt’s own citizens who has begun organizing street demonstrations criticizing Mubarak’s autocratic rule. Optimists see this move as part of a new wave of democracy breaking across the Middle East after the elections in Iraq and Palestine along with the recent resignation of the Lebanese Prime Minister.

However, skeptics such as Ibrahim Eissa point to the fact that while Mubarak is allowing for opposition candidates to run against him “…at the same time he is keeping everything else unchanged, like the emergency laws, imprisoning the opposition, the state controlling the media and political parties existing just on paper.”(NY Times 2/27/05) Such arguments find credence in the fact that leading opposition figure Ayman Nour has remains imprisoned after since Jan. 29 on alleged charges of forging signatures to facilitate his party’s license to operate in Egpt. Nevertheless, Mr. Nour’s wife praised Mr. Mubarak’s call for multi-party elections as “an important step towards the party’s and the Egyptian people’s demand for extensive constitutional reform.”(NY Times 2/27/05)