From fission to Pharaoh?

Dec 17th 2009 | CAIRO
From The Economist print edition

Egyptian reformers suggest a possible president

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Planting a bomb under Egyptian politics

WHEN Mohamed ElBaradei won the Nobel peace prize in 2005, Egyptians happily proclaimed him a national hero. But now that he has retired after 12 years as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, some are calling him a villain. He may be an American or even an Iranian agent, hint editorials in Egypt’s state-owned press. He bears a nasty grudge against his native country after so long abroad, grumble other government mouthpieces.

The reason for this sudden spate of spurious insinuation? Responding to pleas from reform-minded Egyptians despairing of local politics, Mr ElBaradei has suggested he may return to Egypt and run for president in elections due in 2011. Worse yet, he has deigned to propose conditions for his possible candidacy. The poll, he says, must meet internationally accepted standards.

For so prominent a citizen to toss his hat into the ring would cause scarcely a shrug elsewhere. In Egypt, where five decades under a single party and almost three under its present leader, President Hosni Mubarak, have smothered all but a pretence of democracy, it has raised a big cloud of dust. The notion of Mr ElBaradei’s candidacy brings a frisson of unpredictability to what Egyptians had assumed would be a scripted outcome, giving either a sixth six-year term to Mr Mubarak, now 81, or a win for his son, Gamal, who steers policy in the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).

More annoyingly for Egypt’s rulers, Mr ElBaradei’s declaration of conditions has cast unwonted light on the crafty constitutional mechanics that allow the stage-managing of Egypt’s supposed democracy. Even to become a legal independent candidate, for instance, Mr ElBaradei would need to collect 250 signatures from a range of “elected” officials, all of whom happen to sit in bodies massively dominated by the NDP.

Perhaps not even Mr ElBaradei himself expects that he may be allowed to become a serious challenger. Yet such is the depth of frustration with Egypt’s stagnant politics and many social ills, particularly among the generation that has known no rule except Mr Mubarak’s, that even this distant hope has stirred passions. Surprisingly, considering that he has spent most of the past 40 years outside Egypt, and rarely pronounced on its troubles, some 21,000 enthusiasts have signed on to a Facebook support group. Perhaps theirs is the voice of Egypt’s future.

. by .economist.