Egyptian authorities on Saturday barred 10 presidential candidates, including Hosni Mubarak’s former spy chief and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, from running in the election without giving any reason for the decision.
Mubarak-era strongman Omar Suleiman and Muslim Brotherhood chief strategist Khairat el-Shater, two headlining candidates for the presidency, were among those disqualified. The announcement came from Farouk Sultan, the head of the Supreme Presidential Election Commission that was appointed by Egypt’s U.S.-supported military rulers to oversee the vote.
If the decision is upheld, it would be a stark sign of a huge step back in Egypt’s democratic progress. The banned candidates have 48 hours to appeal the decision and the final list of candidates will be announced on April 26.
A spokesman for el-Shater’s campaign, Murad Mohammed Ali, called the decision “very dangerous” and said it gives a message that “there was no revolution in Egypt.”
It must be because of my comment that I had posted elsewhere, to wit:
We must rename the Egyptian revolution as a revolt or a rebellion that it really is, rather than a revolution. In a real revolution such as the French or the Iranian one there are radical and fundamental changes in the organization and the system of government. What we see in Egypt now is that a dictator has been placed by a western-friendly military dictatorship —and you know what that means. The Egyptians failed to hang all Mubarak-appointed military generals from the light posts.
It is so tragic when one hears that General Omar Suleiman, the former President Mubarak's intelligence chief, is actually running for president; and it becomes even more hilarious when one finds out that he was actually Mubarak’s vice-president in the last days of the uprising.
If he somehow comes out of the ballot box as the new president of Egypt, Mubarak will die laughing as he keeps saying: Why did you people revolt when I appointed him as vice president?