Al Hayat reports that the feminist Nawal al Saadawi is forming a political party to contest the presidential election. I don't think she'll win. But still, it's pretty cool that Nawal al Saadawi can form a political party to contest the Egyptian presidential election!
Al Hayat also reports that Egyptian sources are spreading the claim that Mubarak has been planning to change Article 76 of the constitution since before 2002, pointing to a speech he gave to the NDP that year. I say that if that's true, he's done an awfully good job of keeping it to himself. And I'd also say that if that's true, it's pretty amazing that Mubarak has been unable to force his idea through the Egyptian political system - who knew that the President's powers were so limited? Because it looks to the casual observer like when Mubarak gave his speech the other day, the whole Egyptian political system jumped instantly into motion and changed it. Weird, huh?
Al Jazeera reports that a small protest by a few dozen orange-clad supporters of Hizb al Ghad demanding the release of Ayman Nour was broken up by security forces. Al Jazeera cites a Reuters report that more than 200 riot police surrounded a protest of fewer than 70 demonstrators.
Ali Ibrahim has an op-ed in al Sharq al Awsat on the democratic winds sweeping the Arab world. He's excited about Egypt - a very significant event which responds to the slogans and demands that public opinion has been expressing for quite a while - and Lebanon, which he notes is distinguished by the peaceful, unified nature of the protests.
Abdullah Iskander writes in al Hayat that Egypt is changing. He views Mubarak's decision in terms of an attempt to manage an impending economic crisis and the rising popular frustration. According to Iskander, the ruling party and the government had been trying to deal with the dire economic situation with little success, and that their problems were compounded by the sense of political stagnation including the severing of contacts with the legal opposition parties and the Muslim Brothers. Iskander suggests that Mubarak preferred to have the opposition focused on internal issues rather than mobilizing over foreign policy, at a time when Mubarak's regional diplomacy was focused on an unpopular reconciliation with Israel.
Finally, the influential Sudanese moderate Islamist Abd al Wahhab al Affendi writes in al Quds al Arabi that the Egyptian leadership is still failing to read the writing on the wall. Affendi links together Egyptian efforts to help the Syrian leadership over Lebanon with the internal changes. While most of the essay deals with Egypt's foreign policy initiatives, at the end Affendi turns to the constitutional change. He reminds his readers that there is no real government in Egypt other than the intelligence and security forces - no meaningful Parliament or ruling party or separation of powers: everything comes from the hand of the president, who yesterday refused to even discuss the possibility of change and today changes the constitution with a wave of his hand. If the changes actually happen, Affendi writes, it won't mean that Egypt has turned into a democracy: there are many Arab countries which elect their Presidents in multiparty elections, and not one of them is a real democracy. At the least, however, the Egyptian rulers realized that they couldn't continue as they had been, and some change is better than no change. Perhaps they didn't want to take the chance that the United States was serious about reform, perhaps they didn't want to risk Kafaya becoming a mass based popular movement. But Affendi ends on a note which is either hopeful or ominous, depending on your point of view, arguing that Egypt's rulers haven't yet understood that the old methods won't work any more.
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