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Democracy Spreading to Egypt  

2005/02/28

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

United States President George W. Bush continues his freedom spread with now Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak promising presidential "challengers" on the forthcoming ballot.

That’s a significant move of course because Egypt is a Muslim nation. Muslim nations rule by despots, not democracies.

New Iraq is planting its first democracy. Afghanistan is planting its first democracy. Now Mubarak takes the lead in Muslim heads of state by "democratic reform in the world’s most populous Arab country," according to AP’s Tanalee Smith.

This is indeed an historic move.

And it has to be traced back to Mr. Bush’s Iraqi Freedom Operation less than two years ago. That eventuated in the three-week-win war, often forgotten, but necessary to remember. That eventuated in the historic January 30 Victory Vote in the New Iraq, hopefully never forgotten, long remembered.

The Afghanistan president, along with that country’s first Constitution, is worthy of note for that too is because of Mr. Bush’s worldwide leadership. While hampered by free nations willing to remain democracies yet maintaining their self-centered stance, Mr. Bush championed liberties for all peoples of the planet. While frustrated by America’s Democratic Party, enjoying daily its own free air to breathe, Mr. Bush kept the course.

Now Egypt, primarily because of Mr. Bush’s tenacity for freedom’s spread, steps to the voting plate by the president permitting challengers to his very power. Surely the liberal media of the world will treat this as simply another news item; but it’s not. It’s one of the most significant events taking place in the shift of powers planetary.

The three-week-win war shifted the planet’s plates militarily forever. Now the free elections in Egypt are turning the planet’s plates politically, such being preceded by the Afghanistan democracy planting and the New Iraq Victory Vote.

It takes time and patience to see through dramatic changes, let alone worldwide changes in attitude and approach, but that’s what has taken place in the last several years, particularly since the first election of Mr. Bush as leader of the most powerful country on Earth.

"The opposition long had demanded an open election, but Egypt's ruling party repeatedly had rejected it.

"The Egyptian president, who has held power since 1981 without facing an election opponent, only last month dismissed calls for reform as ‘futile.’

"Mr. Mubarak made the announcement in a nationally televised speech, surprising even some in his inner circle, one source close to the presidency said.

"Touting ‘freedom and democracy,’ Mr. Mubarak told an audience at Menoufia University, north of Cairo, that he had instructed parliament and the consultative Shura Council to amend the constitution's Article 76 on presidential elections.

"The changes would set a direct vote ‘giving the chance for political parties to run’ and ‘providing guarantees that allow more than one candidate for the people to choose among them,’ Mr. Mubarak said," according to AP.

What was the audience’s response to Mubarak’s announcement? They starting shouting "Long live Mubarak, mentor of freedom and democracy," greeting their own voices with enthusiastic applause throughout the auditorium.

This is exactly what Mr. Bush has reiterated throughout his presidency, that is, that human beings yearn for liberties in the street. Now slowly but surely that is what is taking place, Egypt now being the latest "to see the light."

Thank you, Mr. President

 

 

 

 

 

 

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