Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Reading the Egyptian Elections

"...The Egyptian people are still in shock ever since the announcement of the results of the presidential elections late last week. They refuse to accept an outcome that sees Gen. Ahmad Shafiq, the last Prime Minister of deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak, having received more than 5.5 million votes, or about 24 percent of the votes cast, less than one percent behind the frontrunner and Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Dr. Muhammad Mursi.
After the dust has settled, some remarkable facts have been revealed that point towards an extremely sophisticated operation, which ensured that Shafiq would receive enough votes to go to the second round runoff (that could only have been pulled off by the Egyptian security apparatus with the support of the military and the remnants of Mubarak’s banned National Democratic Party)....
Moreover, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has never intended to hand over real power to an elected civilian president. According to one European ambassador in Cairo, when he recently asked a member of SCAF how the military would react upon the election of an “Islamist” or a “civilian” belonging to the revolutionary forces the answer was an emphatic “this is not going to happen.” President Jimmy Carter was given the same answer early this year when he met with the leaders of SCAF. He mistakenly interpreted that answer as SCAF not handing over power or even holding elections rather than fielding its own candidate and then ruling from behind. In a recent interview, former intelligence chief and Mubarak’s vice president Omar Suleiman told the London-based al-Hayat newspaper that he had no doubts if an Islamist is elected president a military coup d’état would be inevitable...."

No comments: