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.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday ordered a revision of the country’s election laws and said multiple candidates could run in the nation’s presidential elections, a scenario Mubarak hasn’t faced since taking power in 1981.
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“The election of a president will be through direct, secret balloting, giving the chance for political parties to run for the presidential elections and providing guarantees that allow more than one candidate for the people to choose among them with their own will,” Mubarak said in an address broadcast live on Egyptian television.
Mubarak – who has never faced an opponent since becoming president after the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat – said his initiative came “out of my full conviction of the need to consolidate efforts for more freedom and democracy.”
Is this real progress, in a country of 76 million people, three times the size of Iraq’s population and larger than the population of France? Wait and see.
the real test will come if the egyptians elect an islamic oriented government that displeases the powerboys in washington. but, since egypt doesn’t have any oil, it may not matter. unless dates turn out to be good for penile dysfunction…..