New conditions for Egyptian presidency

Kamal al-Shathli, minister for Parliamentary affairs, reportedly announced several changes to the draft law governing Presidential elections "building on requests made by President Hosni Mubarak."  Those changes include requiring that candidates have served in the military, and that they do not have dual citizenship.   

Three questions: 

(1)  on dual citizenship:  was Saad Eddin really that much of a threat?  I mean, seriously. 

(2)  on service in the military:  point of fact for my Egyptian friends - isn't it the case that wide swathes of the Egyptian elite find ways to avoid military service?  Wouldn't this requirement exclude a considerable portion of the younger generation of elites?  Or is there some technicality here that I'm missing (i.e. it doesn't count as "not serving" if you're rich enough to buy a certain certificate_?

(3)  one other point of fact:  did Gamal serve in the military? 

Comments

[Mohamed]

On dual citizenship, I read somehwere that Ahmed Zoweil (the chemistry nobel prize winner) was asked to run. But now, that's not possible, and I doubt he would've agreed anyways.

Elite still go through the military service --but its a much lighter experience. Some end up evading it and at the age of 30 pay a fine. So 'not serving' could mean the latter i suppose.

[Mohammed]

those three conditions were raised by the opposition MP's and newspapers..

dual citiznship and evading military service are already applied on parliament members... we had the infamous "nowab eltagneed"( were all NDP MP's) whom the supreme court ruled that they have to be kicked out and elections in their districts to be repeated, and the NDP made them resign so it can introduce other candidates thanthe ones who ran against the resigned ones

and dual citiznship reminds everyone witrh ramy lakah, the catholic buisnessman with the french citizniship. few years ago he was on all the papers.

so this isn't gvt making laws to prohibit saad or anyother one from entering the elections ( they already did that wit their amendment's stupid conditions) , but the opposition asking that what has been applied on MP's should be applied on the higher authority- the president-to-be.
kamal elshathli and suroor and azmi were all fighting the opposition back at the parliament, and the papers were all shouting that this law is made for gamal ( in case he didn't do the service, or he have british citizinship, or in case he thought of marrying a foreigner- he's still single-)
then 2 days ago the NDP folks came back and said that they made the 3 changes the opposition asked for and that this was with the blessings of the big mubarak himself. and the opposition sighed in relief and thought that this was too easy :)

ps. magdy mehanna, a columnist in almasry alyoom who wrote that absence of 3 conditions mean that this was all done for gamal, wrote the next day, that he got a call from a friend who told him his son served in the presidential guards with gamal and that gamal already did the service...

[Nur al-Cubicle]

Laugh of the day:

Q Can I turn you for a moment to the Iran statement that the President issued earlier today. I'll read you three lines from it: "Iran's rulers denied more than 1,000 people who put themselves forward as candidates, including popular reformers and women who have done so much. The Iranian people deserve a genuinely democratic system in which elections are honest. They deserve freedom of assembly so Iranians can gather and press for any reform in a peaceful, loyal opposition that can keep the government in check." Scott, can you tell us, if we wanted to insert the word "Egypt" every place you had Iran, and "Egyptians" everyplace you had Iranians, would you consider that also a fair statement of the administration policy?

MR. McCLELLAN: A couple of things. First of all, just on the general statement, different circumstances require different strategies, and people are going to proceed at different -- at a different pace in different parts of the world. The President has said that in his remarks. You heard it in his inaugural address.

[snip]

In Egypt, the President has made it very clear that we appreciate the step that they are taking to have multi-candidate and multi-party presidential elections. That's an important step. And it's important that Egypt follow through on that commitment and have free and fair elections.

[SP]

"People proceed at a different pace" when it's "our" dictator, of course. It's still the Cold War for the Bushies, in spite of talk about the Arab democratic domino effect. Who asked that question to Scott McClellan? Good job.