Move over, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh -- another Dubai murder made the headlines today: Egypt's Court of Cassation ordered a retrial for Hisham Talaat Mustafa, the billionaire businessman accused of killing Lebanese pop star Suzanne Tamim in Dubai in 2008.
Mustafa was sentenced to death in May, after a Cairo court found him guilty of paying a retired Egyptian police officer US$2 million to kill Tamim, his former lover. Prosecutors said Mustafa had Tamim killed after she refused to marry him.
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak said in an interview that any candidate "who can bring benefit to Egypt and its people" can take part in the 2011 election.
Mubarak did the interview with the official Egyptian police magazine (in honor of Police Day). I can't find the interview online, but Al-Masry Al-Youm (عربي) and Al-Ahram (عربي) both summarize the highlights. The long-serving Mubarak pledged "free and fair" elections that reflect the will of voters.
The Egyptian parliament convened on Sunday (عربي) to discuss three issues: weapons smuggling on the Sinai, a health ministry scandal, and the recent sectarian shootings in Nag Hammadi.
But MPs can't agree on whether the shootings really were sectarian violence or merely a criminal act. The ruling National Democratic Party has adopted the latter position: President Hosni Mubarak said allegations of sectarianism would "sow discord" in Egyptian society. Other high-level NDP members have issued similar statements.
Issandr Amrani, better known around here as The Arabist, has a short piece in Foreign Policy about the "ticking time bomb" that is Egyptian presidential succession. Amrani says the central question is whether Gamal Mubarak is overthrown by a coup -- an analysis we agree with -- and then makes this point:
Bad as this all may seem, the alternative could be even uglier: that [Hosni] Mubarak will hang on to power, run for a sixth term in 2011, and go on ruling the country into advanced age.
Khalid al-Shami, a London-based journalist for Al-Quds Al-Arabi, made a similar point (عربي) over the weekend.
The National Democratic Party's sixth annual conference ended, predictably, without any decision on who will replace Mubarak. The party has two years until the election, and you can imagine the NDP leadership is in no hurry to announce what will surely be an unpopular candidate.
The NDP did find some time to bash the Muslim Brotherhood, though, according to Bikya Masr, which reports that two members of parliament urged the government to confiscate the Brotherhood's funds.
A big thank-you to commenter Hakeem, who passed along this link (عربي) to a transcript of Hosni Mubarak's speech yesterday at the National Democratic Party conference. It's a pretty standard political speech touting Mubarak's accomplishments: Foreign investment is up from $2 billion per year to $10 billion; public-sector wages have increased; etc.
The focus on young people is notable. Mubarak claims, for example, that 3.4 million new jobs have been created for young Egyptians in the last few years. (The rate of youth unemployment in Egypt is indeed dropping, though it still stands at a staggering 16.9 percent.)
Mubarak is obviously trying to shed the NDP's sclerotic image. That's a difficult pivot, though, for a president who has been in office for 28 years.
Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, tells Reuters that his group will not field a candidate for the 2011 presidential election.
Boursa Exchange catches the news that Gamal Mubarak will deliver a speech at the Arab Global Forum in Washington in December.
Anything labelled "global forum" is destined to be a dull affair: overcooked chicken, schmoozing with businessmen and politicians, interminable speeches. The real question is what else Gamal plans to do -- who else he plans to meet -- while he's in Washington.
In other Gamal news: I read something yesterday in Al-Quds Al-Arabi -- the link seems to be broken today, sorry -- about the younger Mubarak embarking on a "rural tour" around middle and upper Egypt. He's been trying to boost his populist bona fides for months now. (But he's still not officially planning to run for president! Really!)
The National Democratic Party kicks off its sixth annual conference on Saturday. The party is expected to choose a new transport minister (عربي), to replace the recently-departed Mohammed Mansour. Gamal is also expected to accept "a high-profile role" within the party, according to the speculation in the Times of London.
Mohammed Mansour, Egypt's transportation minister, has resigned his post in the wake of this weekend's deadly train crash.
Al-Masry Al-Youm describes this as the first time in Mubarak's 28-year rule that a minister has accepted responsibility for a problem (let alone resigned over one).
Hosni Mubarak likes to paint himself as a source of stability in the Middle East. Sure, he's an authoritarian ruler who refuses to allow free elections and routinely violates the human rights of his citizens. But successive American presidents have viewed him as a moderating force in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a bulwark against Islamism in his own country -- a useful dictator, in other words.
But a coalition of Egyptian human rights groups is trying to rebrand Mubarak: shining a light on his human rights abuses, and arguing that "the pharaoh" strengthens Egyptian extremists by ignoring economic development and trampling democracy.
Al-Jazeera English has a report online about those rumors that the Muslim Brotherhood struck a deal with the NDP. (The Brotherhood will allegedly back Gamal Mubarak's presidential bid and withdraw its parliamentary candidates; in exchange, the regime will end its crackdown.)
The Brotherhood says the rumors are bogus. And a newspaper editor close to Gamal Mubarak says the whole thing is a publicity stunt staged by the Brotherhood.
I still don't see any reason why the Brotherhood would make this kind of deal with the regime; it would only weaken the group's already weak hand.
A bleg: I was busy analyzing Richard Holbrooke's talk yesterday and I missed Gamal Mubarak's online chat. My priorities are out of whack, I know. Does anyone know where I can find a transcript, preferably in Arabic?
The National's story about the forum talks a lot about the concept, and about the slick presentation, but it's pretty light on detail about what Mubarak actually said.
It sounds like the forum focused mostly on economic problems. That makes sense, both because those issues are critical to young Egyptians, and because Gamal -- with his MBA and his banking experience -- is trying to position himself as Egypt's best hope for economic development.
The topics touched on a laundry list of Egyptian woes: the outdated educational curriculum; inequality stemming from the government's ambitious programme of economic reform; fears of declining food subsidies and welfare benefits for the poor and corruption in the highest levels of government.
If you have a link to a transcript, let me know.
Al-Masry Al-Youm had an unintentionally hilarious article the other day called "Mubarak 2.0." It was about how the sclerotic NDP is trying to copy the "Obama model," using modern technology to rebrand itself and reach out to a younger generation.
Now I see Gamal Mubarak plans to host an online forum (عربي) to chat with Egyptians. The forum's Facebook fan page (عربي) says you can submit questions until midnight tonight -- so I gather there will be some pre-screening of the questions. Surprising, I know.
Hosni Mubarak is 81, and not a healthy 81, either. Egypt is going to have to deal with presidential succession soon.
The issue is still basically off-limits; you can go to jail for suggesting Hosni won't live forever. But, as the New York Times reports, the Egyptian media are starting to write about it.
"The laws of life have brought the moment that can no longer be delayed, forcing us to discuss the issue of the alternative," wrote Hossam Abdel Baseer recently in an Egyptian opposition daily, Al Wafd.
The Egyptian government has arrested more than 100 Muslim Brotherhood members in the last two months (including seven last week). And there's talk that Mubarak will dissolve the parliament to replace it with a "friendlier" -- more compliant -- group of legislators.
Both of those developments suggest the ruling National Democratic Party thinks succession is an imminent issue.
I wrote a post on the subject last month. The big question is whether the NDP will try to elevate Gamal Mubarak (Hosni's son) or Omar Suleiman (Hosni's intelligence chief) as his successor. But then there are other questions: who will the army support? What will the Brotherhood do?
Gamal Mubarak, Hosni's son, is getting a public square named after him in Asyut because of his "contributions to fighting poverty in Upper Egypt." (h/t The Arabist)
This is amusing on a couple of levels. First, someone needs to tell me what Gamal Mubarak has done to "fight poverty" in Upper Egypt. Someone should also explain it to the residents of Upper Egypt, with whom Gamal is quite unpopular. He has strong connections to Egypt's big businessmen -- few of whom have endeared themselves to the farmers and laborers in Egyptian villages.
Asyut has also historically been a center of Muslim Brotherhood activity, so it's a little ironic to think of this bit of National Democratic Party propaganda sitting in the center of town.
What two numbers scare the Egyptian regime?
The first is 21, the percentage of unemployed young Egyptians (16-29 years old), according to new data from the Council of Ministers. Obviously you can figure out the political ramifications of high youth unemployment. The council does say that 59 percent of Egyptian youth "feel very patriotic." Even if that figure is accurate, though, it means 41 percent of Egyptians are somewhat disillusioned with their government.
And remember that's just an unemployment statistic. It doesn't account for the underemployed in Egypt -- people with college degrees working in menial jobs, or scraping out a tenuous existence selling trinkets to tourists.
The Arabist points to this bizarre blog pushing Omar Suleiman as the next president of Egypt. It makes an interesting jumping-off point for a discussion about Egypt's impending presidential transition. The blog is in Arabic, sorry -- I'll explain the important parts below.
A little background first. Omar Suleiman is Egypt's intelligence chief, a politically powerful figure whose name might be familiar if you follow regional news: he's a key mediator between Israel and Palestine. He met earlier this month with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, in fact.
But he keeps a low profile within Egypt; I can't remember ever reading about a Suleiman speech or public appearance.
