Word: mubarak
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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President Hosni Mubarak addressed his supporters Sunday night at Cairo's Abdeen Palace, seat of the royal dynasty of Mohammed Ali - the only man in the past two centuries to rule the land of the ancient pharaohs longer than Mubarak has. "With our blood, our soul, we will sacrifice for you!" shouted the crowd. After the speech, a guy in the crowd pushed a paper in my face: It was a collection of poems extolling the leader's virtues. "O Mubarak! You are a mountain that does not shake with the wind!" read one of the lines...
...Such a scene may have be more reminiscent of Saddam Hussein than of Thomas Jefferson, but Egypt's presidential election on Wednesday may yet signal the twilight of the country's age of dynasties. Nobody expects Mubarak to lose the vote, whether the balloting is honest or has to be rigged in his favor. Despite the inevitability of the result, however, many Egyptians feel the election has breathed new life into Egyptian politics after decades of autocratic rule...
...Mubarak's Abdeen speech was not another lecture from a dictator, but an appeal from a politician for the votes of citizens. For the first time in Egypt's history, the President faced not a yes-no referendum on his presidency, in which he'd be assured of 99% or so of the tally, but a contest in which he had to defend his record before the citizenry against rival candidates. Mubarak has been hop-scotching around the country, telling crowds, "I stand before you asking for your endorsement." Close on his heels, nine challengers have been giving raucous speeches...
...Although Mubarak claims that he initiated reforms in Egypt more than a decade ago, he seems to have caught the freedom bug recently. Last January, at age 77 and after 24 years in power, he finally conceded longstanding opposition demands to amend the constitution and permit a multiparty presidential election. Apart from growing pressure for internal reform from the Bush administration since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Mubarak was confronted with the birth of a protest movement last December known as Kiyafa, or Enough (as in, "We've had enough of Mubarak!"). He proposed the constitutional change two months...
...Eager to show Egyptians as well as Washington policymakers that Egypt is a practicing democracy, Mubarak joined the fray with all the trappings of a slick Western-style campaign. His trips were backed up by a campaign HQ in Cairo, staffed by media experts, pollsters, lawyers and college professors, including one with a Ph. D from an American university who once worked as a congressional aide on Capitol Hill. To fill out Mubarak's political rallies, the campaign bused in students wearing Mubarak T-shirts, caps and "Mubarak 2005" buttons - young men who as often as not were...