As the date approaches for Egypt's first "free" elections in thirty years, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in the iconic Tahrir Square Friday to demand that the Army back off its proposal to give itself perpetual veto power over a new constitution and continued freedom from public scrutiny.
Beginning sit in at Tahrir Square
Beginning sit in at Tahrir Square Hundreds of thousands of protesters descended on Tahrir Square Friday to call for one principal demand: an end to military rule and a swift transfer of power to an elected president by April 2012 .
flickr image By lokha Lorenz Khazaleh
Egyptians will go to the polls on November 28 for the first of three rounds of Parliamentary elections. These will be followed early next year by the nation's first "free" presidential election. In the past, until 2005, under the Mubarak regime, both parliamentary and presidential elections were tightly restricted to candidates from only one political party - Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP), and universally criticized for widespread fraud and voter intimidation.
In 2005, then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cancelled a trip to Egypt scheduled for the following week because of Egypt's arrest and imprisonment of a leading candidate, Ayman Nour of the "Tomorrow" party. He was released in time to run for president in the election of 2005, where he gained slightly more than seven per cent of the vote. That was the first year that Egypt ever ran a multi-party election, after considerable pressure from the US and other countries. Nour was then not released from prison until 2009.
Since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak in February, Egypt has been ruled by the Army, through the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), a group of generals, plus a civilian government they appointed. The wide array of groups and parties that sparked the February revolution have been highly critical of the SCAF and its civilian puppets for a host of what they consider retrograde and anti-democratic actions.
These include dragging their feet on reforms such as lifting the so-called "emergency laws" that give the authorities license to arrest without cause, try civilians before military courts and convict and sentence defendants without lawyers or sufficient time to prepare adequate defenses. Some 12,000 people have been charged under military rules since the revolution began. The army's military police have been criticized by most political actors for continuing the prisoner torture policies of the Mubarak regime.
Criticism of the armed forces is a crime under Egyptian law. It is being enforced by the SCAF and numerous journalists and bloggers have been tried before military courts and jailed for substantial prison terms under this Mubarak-era law.
Following the Parliamentary elections, a committee of Parliament will draft a new Constitution. Through its civilian government, the Army has recently proposed that a number of "supra-Constitutional" measures be adopted. SCAF wants the military's budget shielded from scrutiny by Parliament and the public and SCAF to have veto-power over all military-related matters in the Constitution.
According to Agence France Presse (AFP), the Muslim Brotherhood and numerous other groups of various political persuasions spearheaded Friday's Tahrir Square protests, united by the conviction that the military must transfer power to a civilian government as soon as possible.
The contested "extra Constitutional" document, presented by Deputy Prime Minister Ali Silmi, drew fire from virtually every quarter. He responded: "The army is the only guardian of Egypt at this difficult time. Even if we disagree with some of their actions, it can be resolved through discussions and not through pressuring and threatening the military. Egypt, in some cases, is no more than masses and crowds."
The Muslim Brotherhood, through its Freedom and Justice Party, may emerge as the largest bloc in the election, the first since the fall of Mubarak. In the 2005 election, the Brotherhood, though officially banned by the government as a political party, won about 20 per cent of the votes for parliament. Their candidates ran as "independents."
The SCAF, which took charge after Mubarak's ouster and suspended the
Constitution and parliament, says it will hand over power once a new president is elected. Parliamentary elections will start on November 28 and are expected to end in March.
AFP reports that "chants were heard in Cairo and Alexandria comparing Chief Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the current head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), to ousted President Hosni Mubarak."
In addition to the Muslim Brotherhood, the majority political parties are participating in criticism of the SCAF. These include the April 6 Youth Movement, Salafi parties and many liberal and pro-democratic groups.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
