Washington welcomed Mubarak's decision to hold multi-presidential elections in Egypt, reports Khaled Dawoud from the US capital United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described President Hosni Mubarak's call for holding multi- presidential elections in Egypt as "positive". "It begins to change the conditions of the Egyptian political circumstances. It begins to give to people a sense that they can start to compete in politics, which is ultimately one of the most important elements of a road to democracy," Rice said. However, some senior US officials said that they would withhold final judgement until they learn more details about how the upcoming presidential elections will be organised. They wanted to know if candidates would be granted equal opportunities. "There obviously will have to be follow-on steps, but I'm sure that the Egyptian people will begin to take advantage of the changed circumstances." President Mubarak's declaration on Saturday that he wants to amend Egypt's constitution to allow the shift towards multi presidential elections apparently took US officials by surprise. It came soon after the US publicly expressed its dismay over the arrest of Egyptian MP and opposition party leader Ayman Nour. Shortly after Rice called upon the Egyptian government to release Nour in her talks with her Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Abul-Gheit in Washington two weeks ago, Egypt announced that it decided to postpone a US-proposed joint G8-Arab League meeting, originally due to be held in early March, to discuss political and economic reform in the Arab world. Rice also announced that she would postpone a regional tour that was supposed to include Egypt, confirming that US-Egyptian relations were not at their best. Mubarak's decision was seen by supporters of US President George W Bush as vindication of his having set the goal of spreading freedom and democracy in the Middle East as a main goal of his second presidential term. Clearly aiming at serving Bush's agenda, White House sources also credited Iraq's recent elections for what they said was an obvious move towards expanding democracy and freedom in several Arab countries, namely Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt. But senior administration officials said they would continue to call upon the Egyptian government to release MP Nour, and would seek assurances that the next presidential elections in Egypt in September "will be truly free and fair". One Bush administration official who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly on condition of anonymity said, "We want to make sure we are not going to see a repetition of the Tunisian model. That would be disappointing." He was referring to a constitutional amendment the Tunisian government approved in the late 1990s, also allowing multi-presidential elections there, but the conditions it set to compete against Tunisian President Zein Al-Abdine Bin Ali, were so tough that he ended up winning the usual over 95 per cent of the vote. "We have some concerns, and we will continue to raise them with the Egyptian government," the official added. The New York Times also quoted another senior US administration official on Sunday as saying, "We are hopeful, but until we know exactly what the government is embracing, it is too early to declare that it is a major change." According to the Times, US officials want to know "how freely opposition candidates would be able to campaign, whether the state-controlled media would be permitted to cover all the candidates equally, whether the government would allow rallies in support of opposition candidates and whether international election monitors would be allowed." During his visit to Washington, Foreign Minister Abul-Gheit was vehement in his insistence that Egypt would not allow international monitoring of its elections, saying that the electoral process was under the supervision of the Egyptian judiciary and that this provided enough guarantees for its fairness. Many human rights activists believe that American University in Cairo (AUC) professor Saadeddin Ibrahim was arrested and tried by authorities in 2001 because he insisted on monitoring parliament elections. In her statements to reporters on Tuesday, Rice said that President Bush would continue to "challenge friends to do their best to begin to enshrine democratic principles and to allow democracy to flourish". She added that despite postponing her trip to Egypt, she would remain in touch with Egyptian counterpart, Abul-Gheit. Rice said she still expected to visit Egypt "fairly soon". "So we have a broad and important agenda with Egypt, including reform, and I look forward to continuing it," she said. Asked to comment on Egyptian opposition demands to lift the emergency law and to provide guarantees for fair access to the government-controlled media in order to assure an open presidential elections, Rice said, "I do think that the opening up of the political system, the ability for others to compete, the ability for others to access media, for instance, so that they can compete ... are all important elements of a developing open political system, and I think that's what we would encourage." Asked specifically whether she considered jailed MP Nour, a "hero of democracy", Rice said, "Well, there are people who have certainly suffered for their views, who have refused to remain silent, and that is the way that democratic development begins. And I think it's clear that we've been concerned about that case. We've raised it with the Egyptian government. We hope it will be resolved soon." Informed sources at the State Department said they expected democracy and human rights to remain a top issue on the US agenda in talks with countries such as Egypt, especially after the appointment of Elizabeth Cheney, daughter of US Vice President Dick Cheney, as acting assistant secretary of state for Middle East affairs. Cheney was in charge of the Middle East Partnership Initiative during Bush's first term, and gave up her post shortly before November's elections in order to give birth. Cheney is expected to push her human rights agenda, particularly in the fields of women's rights and education.
