Word: mubarak
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...returns from Wednesday?s election indicate that Mubarak won hands-down, but the importance of the country?s first-ever multiparty presidential vote was that after decades of authoritarian rule, Egyptians were actually offered a choice of contenders for the top office. (Mubarak?s four previous six-year terms were affirmed by referendum rather than in competitive elections.) Although the turnout was low, many like Badawi sought to make full use of the newly sanctioned right to cast ballots for an opposition candidate. Instead of receiving the 99% or so approval he routinely received in the referendums on his presidency...
Iman Badawi trudged up two flights of stairs inside the ramshackle Helwan School for Girls, looking for the classroom that had been turned into a polling station. The 42-year-old former teacher said she was certain that President Hosni Mubarak?s ruling party would rig the vote as it had done in past elections. Nonetheless, she took her 10-year-old daughter by the hand, entered the room and cast her ballot for opposition candidate Ayman Nour. ?I brought my daughter to show her the importance of participating,? Badawi said outside the school in Helwan, an industrial city...
...After Mubarak's speech at Abdeen Palace, a man who told me he was a teacher discreetly slipped me a tiny piece of paper and then walked back into the crowd, like a spy in a cloak and dagger operation. "Pass this message," it read in scribbled red ink. "There is no democracy in Egypt and there is no dignity for the human being in this country. Those people inside the rally own Egypt, but those outside are the powerless. Signed, An Egyptian Citizen." Such clandestine protests are no longer all Mubarak has to contend with, however. Even his very...
...Despite Kifaya's calls for a boycott, on the grounds that the election is a farce designed to maintain Mubarak in office with the pretense of a democratic vote, some of Mubarak's staunchest opponents lept at the chance to push the margin of freedom as far as they could. Among them is Ayman Nour, a 41-year-old member of parliament and former journalist who is Mubarak's most outspoken critic and who promises to supervise the adoption of a new democratic Egyptian constitution and then call for new elections within two years. Security forces jailed Nour...
...Lest anyone get the impression that Egypt will actually hold a free and fair election, candidates like Nour point out how the system is stacked against them. Mubarak's National Democratic Party machine ensured that government patronage workers get to the polls, while the state-controlled media has heavily favored the incumbent's campaign. The Mubarak-controlled parliament only amended the constitution four months ago, giving opposition parties, weakened by decades of one-party rule, little time to attract and mobilize supporters. Even if they had more time, Mubarak refused to allow any new voters to register, effectively shutting...