مقالة الدكتور علاء الاسوانى فى المصرى اليوم :خمسة مواقف من الثورة!

كتبهاعلاء الأسوانى ، في 15 مارس 2011 الساعة: 09:40 ص

مقالة الدكتور علاء الاسوانى فى المصرى اليوم

15 مارس 2011

 

خمسة مواقف من الثورة!

 

حدث ذلك فى ميدان التحرير أثناء الثورة، كانت الساعة الثانية صباحاً وكنت أحس بإرهاق فأشعلت سيجارة وألقيت بالعلبة الفارغة على الأرض.. اقتربت منى سيدة جاوزت السبعين وحيتنى بحرارة ثم قالت إنها من قرائى وأثنت على ما أكتبه فشكرتها لكنها تطلعت إلى فجأة وقالت:

 

ـــ من فضلك خذ هذه العلبة من على الأرض.

 

أحسست بخجل، انحنيت والتقطت العلبة الفارغة، فقالت السيدة:

 

ــ ألق بها هناك فى المكان المخصص للقمامة..

 

فعلت كما أرادت وعدت إليها كأننى طفل مذنب، فابتسمت وقالت:

 

ــ نحن الآن نبنى مصر أخرى جديدة.. يجب أن تكون نظيفة..

 

هذه واحدة من حوادث كثيرة مبهرة عشتها بنفسى أثناء الثورة. كنا نهتف مرة بسقوط حسنى مبارك عندما تحمس شاب وصاح بهتاف بذىء ضد السيدة سوزان مبارك فأسكته المتظاهرون فورا وقالوا له: نحن نطالب بحقوقنا ولسنا شتامين. ثلاثة أسابيع اجتمع خلالها مليون شخص فى مكان واحد ولم نسمع عن حادثة تحرش واحدة ولا حادثة سرقة واحدة. لعلها أول مرة فى التاريخ ينزل المعتصمون بعد تحقيق مطالبهم لينظفوا الميدان الذى اعتصموا فيه.

 

لماذا تجّلت الشخصية المصرية بكل هذا الرقى أثناء الثورة؟!…

 

الواقع أن الثورة فى حد ذاتها إنجاز إنسانى عظيم. الثورة تخرج من الإنسان أفضل ما فيه وتخلصه من عيوبه وانحرافاته الأخلاقية. عندما تثور تتحول فورا إلى كائن إنسانى أرقى لأنك تواجه الاعتقال والموت من أجل حريتك وكرامتك. لأنك تؤكد فى كل لحظة أن حرصك على الحرية أكبر من حرصك على الحياة نفسها.

 

السؤال: هل اشترك المصريون جميعا فى الثورة.. ؟ الإجابة بالنفى لأنه لا توجد ثورة فى التاريخ اشترك فيها كل أفراد الشعب.. فى رأيى أنه فى مصر الآن خمسة مواقف مختلفة من الثورة.

 

أولا: الثائرون

 

.. هؤلاء يمثلون أنبل ما فى مصر، ثاروا من أجل الحرية ودفعوا ثمنا باهظا من أجل بلادهم.. الأرقام الحقيقية لضحايا الثورة التى تسربت من وزارة الصحة تشير إلى أكثر من ٨٠٠ شهيد، وأكثر من ١٢٠٠ شاب فقدوا أعينهم من الرصاص المطاطى، وآلاف المفقودين الذين قد يكون منهم شهداء كثيرون.. هذه التضحيات الكبيرة هى ما يجعل أصحاب الثورة مصرين على تحقيق أهدافها بالكامل، وهم بعد أن صهرتهم تجربة الثورة تخلصوا من الخوف إلى الأبد، كما أنهم يتمتعون بوعى سياسى يجعلهم عادة يتخذون الموقف الصحيح.

 

ثانيا: المتفرجون

 

هؤلاء مصريون عانوا لسنوات طويلة من نظام مبارك الفاسد الظالم لكنهم لم يكونوا مستعدين قط للتضحية من أجل انتزاع حقوقهم. كانوا منهمكين فى كفاحهم من أجل الرزق، ومشغولين تماماً بهموم الحياة اليومية. أقصى ما كانوا يفعلونه أن يجأروا بالشكوى ثم يرددوا: «ربنا يولى من يصلح». فوجئ المتفرجون بالثورة ولم يشتركوا فيها واكتفوا بمشاهدتها فى التليفزيون، وقد تقلبت عواطفهم مع الثورة وضدها أكثر من مرة.. فى البداية صدّق كثيرون منهم تضليل الإعلام الرسمى واعتبروا الثوار مأجورين ومدسوسين ثم رأوا الشهداء يتساقطون فتعاطفوا معهم، لكنهم لما شاهدوا حسنى مبارك وهو يطالب بأن يموت فى بلاده بكوا متأثرين.

 

وفى اليوم التالى لما حدثت مذبحة المتظاهرين انقلبوا من جديد وأيدوا الثورة. هؤلاء المتفرجون يريدون التغيير بشرط ألا يكلفهم ذلك شيئا. يريدون أن تتحقق الديمقراطية دون خسائر لهم وبلا أدنى تغيير فى نظام حياتهم وهم يعيشون نفسيا وفكريا فى مرحلة ما قبل الثورة….

 

 

 

ثالثا: أعداء الثورة

 

هؤلاء مصريون يدركون أن الثورة ستضيع مكاسبهم وثرواتهم وقد تؤدى بهم إلى المحاكمة والسجن. وهم متنوعون فى الدرجات الاجتماعية والمهن: وزراء ورجال أعمال من كبراء الحزب الوطنى، وضباط أمن دولة، وإعلاميون فاسدون، ومرتشون صغار وسماسرة.. كل هؤلاء مصممون على القضاء على إنجازات الثورة أو تعطيلها. هؤلاء الفاسدون كانوا مطمئنين فى ظل حكومة أحمد شفيق التلميذ النجيب لمبارك. أمضى الفريق شفيق أكثر من شهر فى منصبه فلم يقدم ضابطا واحدا للمحاكمة بتهمة قتل المتظاهرين بالعكس فإن وزير داخليته محمود وجدى أشاد بالمهام الوطنية التى يؤديها ضباط أمن الدولة… عندما أقال المجلس الأعلى للقوات المسلحة حكومة شفيق، وعين بدلا منها حكومة الثورة بقيادة الدكتور عصام شرف، استشعر أعداء الثورة الخطر فبدأوا فى اليوم التالى إعدام المستندات واختفى ضباط أمن الدولة من مكاتبهم ليعملوا على نشر الفوضى وذلك من أجل تحقيق هدفين: أولا خلق حساسيات بين الجيش والثوار تدفع بالجيش إلى التخلى عن تأييد الثورة… والهدف الثانى الضغط على المصريين المتفرجين حتى يكرهوا الثورة بسبب وقف الحال والفوضى وانعدام الأمن حتى يكون ذلك مبررا لاتخاذ إجراءات استثنائية تعيد مصر إلى النظام السابق…

 

رابعا: الإخوان المسلمون

 

اشترك الإخوان المسلمون بشجاعة فى الثورة مثل بقية المصريين، بل إن شباب الإخوان صنعوا بطولات حقيقية لحماية المتظاهرين من اعتداء الشرطة والبلطجية.. على أن مشكلة الإخوان المزمنة التى تتكرر بانتظام منذ إنشاء الجماعة عام ١٩٢٨، تتمثل فى المفارقة المؤسفة بين الصلابة الأخلاقية للإخوان كأشخاص والليونة السياسية لهم كتنظيم. معظم الإخوان أشخاص جيدون ومخلصون لكن قياداتهم تضع مصلحة الجماعة أولا وتلعب على كل الحبال. من هنا وقفت جماعة الإخوان بانتظام ضد الديمقراطية وأيدت الحكام المستبدين جميعا بلا استثناء واحد، بدءا من الملك فاروق وإسماعيل صدقى جلاد الشعب، وحتى عبدالناصر وأنور السادات. ولقد رأينا كيف خالف الإخوان الإجماع الوطنى واشتركوا فى انتخابات مبارك الأخيرة، ثم خالفوا الإجماع مرة أخرى وجلسوا للتفاوض مع عمر سليمان الذى أراد أن يبيض وجه النظام السابق ببعض الصور التذكارية مع المعارضين. وها نحن نرى الإخوان يكررون أخطاءهم من جديد فيقفون مع الحزب الوطنى فى الخندق نفسه ويؤيدون التعديلات الدستورية التى يعلمون جيدا أنها معيبة وستؤدى إلى عرقلة الديمقراطية وتضييع مكاسب الثورة.. لقد اتخذت قيادة الإخوان قرارا بتأييد التعديلات لأن الانتخابات لو أجريت بسرعة فسوف تؤدى إلى حصولهم على عدد أكبر من المقاعد فى مجلس الشعب، وهذا الاعتبار أهم لديهم من أى اعتبار آخر…

 

خامسا: القوات المسلحة

 

لم تكن هذه الثورة لتنجح لولا حماية القوات المسلحة التى انحازت من اليوم الأول للشعب المصرى ضد النظام الفاسد. لاشك إذن فى فضل الجيش على الثورة لكن ثمة أسئلة حائرة يرددها المصريون ولا يجدون لها إجابة:

 

١- ما الوضع القانونى للرئيس المخلوع حسنى مبارك…؟ هل هو متقاعد أم متحفظ عليه أم محدد الإقامة؟ وهل من حقه أن يستعمل الطائرات والقصور الرئاسية..؟ ومتى تتم محاكمته على الجرائم التى ارتكبها فى حق الشعب المصرى، ولماذا لم تتم ملاحقة كبار أعوان مبارك مثل صفوت الشريف وزكريا عزمى وفتحى سرور..؟

 

٢- لاشك أن القوات المسلحة تدرك تماما الدور الإجرامى الذى لعبته مباحث أمن الدولة على مدى عقود.. بدءا من الاعتقال والتعذيب البشع وهتك الأعراض والتجسس على المواطنين وابتزازهم، وصولا إلى تخريب مصر كلها عن طريق الدفع بالعملاء وكتبة التقارير إلى المناصب القيادية بغض النظر عن كفاءتهم.. لقد تمت إحالة بعض قيادات وضباط أمن الدولة إلى المحاكمة.. هذه خطوة جيدة لكن أغلب ضباط أمن الدولة طلقاء ومختفون عن الأنظار، ولسوف يعملون كل ما فى وسعهم من أجل إشاعة الفوضى وإثارة القلاقل وهم يملكون أدوات التخريب كاملة: الأسلحة والخبرة والأموال والعملاء الذين ينتظرون أوامرهم فى كل مجال بدءا من الإعلام وحتى الأحزاب السياسية.. إن حرق المستندات والفتنة الطائفية ومظاهرات الأقباط والسلفيين ليست سوى بروفات صغيرة لما تستطيع فلول أمن الدولة أن تصنع بمصر… لماذا لا يستعمل الجيش قانون الطوارئ للقبض على ضباط أمن الدولة وتقديمهم للمحاكمة..؟

 

٣- بعد سقوط حسنى مبارك ثارت مطالب فئوية فى كل مكان فى مصر.. السبب فى ذلك أن معظم أصحاب المناصب فى الوزارات والمصالح والجامعات فاسدون ومتواطئون مع نظام مبارك.. هناك إذن مطالب فئوية مشروعة فلماذا لا يتم تكوين لجنة للتطهير من قضاة مستقلين للتحقيق فى شكاوى العاملين وعند التأكد من صحتها تتم إحالتها إلى النائب العام؟.. أعتقد أن هذه الطريقة الوحيدة لإيقاف المظاهرات الفئوية.. عندما يطمئن الناس أن العدالة ستتحقق حتى ولو بعد حين.

 

٤- لماذا يبدو الجيش متعجلا لإنهاء الفترة الانتقالية؟ الإجابة المعتادة أن الجيش يريد إنهاء مهمته الصعبة فى أقرب فرصة حتى يعود إلى وظيفته الأساسية فى تأمين الوطن.. هذا كلام معقول ومقبول، ولكن ألم يكن من الأفضل الأخذ باقتراح أساتذة القانون وتعيين مجلس رئاسى مؤقت من عسكرى ومدنيين ليرفع عن قيادة الجيش المسؤولية فى الفترة الانتقالية.. عندئذ كان سيمكن إعطاء مهلة كافية بعد إطلاق حرية تكوين الأحزاب حتى تأتى الانتخابات معبرة عن إرادة الشعب المصرى.

 

٥- من المعروف أن الدستور يسقط تلقائيا بسقوط النظام السياسى الذى يمثله.. فلماذا الإصرار على ترقيع الدستور القديم؟.. القوى الوطنية جميعا (باستثناء الإخوان المسلمين والحزب الوطنى) رفضت التعديلات واعتبرتها معيبة، بل إن المستشار زكريا عبدالعزيز رأى فيها استخفافا بالشعب المصرى.. ما الحكمة فى الإصرار على هذه التعديلات..؟ ثم كيف سيجرى الاستفتاء عليها فى هذه الحالة الأمنية المتدهورة…؟! لماذا لا نتبع نصيحة أهل الاختصاص من أساتذة القانون الدستورى ونعلن وثيقة بمبادئ الدستور ثم نجرى انتخابات لجمعية تأسيسية تكتب دستورا جديدا يعبر عن إرادة الشعب..؟ إذا كانت الإجابة أن الحالة الأمنية لا تسمح بإجراء انتخابات فنحن نذكر بأنه فى ظل نفس الحالة الأمنية المتدهورة سيجرى استفتاء على التعديلات فى أنحاء البلاد كلها… فإذا كنا قادرين على عمل استفتاء على التعديلات سنكون بلاشك قادرين على عمل انتخابات لجمعية تأسيسية للدستور.

 

هذه الأسئلة المشروعة لا تقلل بالطبع من تقديرنا للدور الوطنى العظيم الذى قامت به القوات المسلحة.. لكن مصر تمر بلحظة دقيقة تفرض علينا جميعا أن نتكلم بأمانة وصراحة حتى تبدأ بلادنا المستقبل الذى تستحقه.

 

الديمقراطية هى الحل…

 

Egypt on the brink

November 20, 2010

Haroon Siddiqui

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak

CHRIS KLEPONIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

CAIRO—The king is old and sick, perhaps dying. The queen is said to want their second son as successor. But the old guard in the military and intelligence circles think the young man is not ready. Until he is, they want one of their own as interim leader.

There’s much uncertainty aboard the land. There always is towards the end of autocratic one-man rule.

Hosni Mubarak, 83, has been president of Egypt for 29 years. The nation of 83 million, the most populous in the Arab world, is waiting for a new pharaoh.

Yet periodically word is sent down from the palace that Mubarak may not be ready to retire yet, having recovered from gall-bladder surgery in Germany in March. Indeed, he looked fit at a rare public appearance last week.

If he does run next year for his sixth six-year term, he would no doubt win, big. He always does. The state sees to it.

Meanwhile, a national election for parliament is underway. It, too, is a sham. Mubarak’s National Democratic Party will sweep the Nov. 28 vote.

“The outcome will be the same as it always is,” I am told by Hala Mustafa, editor in chief of Democracy Review, a political quarterly. It’s a commonly held view but it’s significant that she says it, her publication being part of the Al-Ahram newspaper conglomerate, a government entity.

The regime has even let it be known who the opposition will be. It won’t be the Muslim Brotherhood, which in the 2005 election won 88 of the 444 seats. This time a secular left-of-centre party may be anointed the opposition.

Welcome to America’s biggest ally in the Arab world, the recipient of $2 billion a year aid — a total of nearly $60 billion since it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

Fixing elections and running a virtual one-party state is only one of the many sins of the regime that’s routinely referred to by the North American media as a “moderate,” battling evil anti-American, anti-Israeli forces.

No one is calling for regime change, even as Egypt continues to be one of the worst violators of human rights. It presides over discrimination against religious minorities, disappearances of political opponents and widespread torture. Indeed, it has been a preferred post-9/11 destination for “extraordinary renditions,” a.k.a. American sub-contracting of torture abroad.

Since the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat, Egypt has been under de facto martial law. “Emergency rule” permits indefinite detentions without trials, limits on freedom of speech and assembly, restrictions on unions and NGOs, and an overly broad definition of terrorism.

The one million-strong security and intelligence apparatus is ubiquitous. No sooner do you leave Cairo airport than you see agents at street corners and government buildings. (You also see that other ingredient of dictatorships — giant billboards of The Leader, inevitably looking young and robust.)

The regime is said to employ another one million informants, who have infiltrated universities, mosques and other institutions.

“The government is controlling every aspect of our lives,” says Hossam Bahgat, a human rights activist honoured in Toronto last week by Human Rights Watch for his advocacy work.

And it has incarcerated about 18,000 political prisoners.

Yet this is not a police state of the Cold War kind. There is an emerging civil society, including about 50 NGOs with an independent voice. They are byproducts of the brief Cairo spring that followed George W. Bush’s post-9/11 push for democracy.

Scores of independent newspapers and satellite TV channels were started. Social media flourished. There are ongoing sit-ins and demonstrations over high food prices, low wages, police brutality, corruption and other ills.

But dissent is only as effective as the regime allows it to be, which is not much. The security services have elevated control to an art form. They are as repressive as they need be and no more.

“They inject controlled doses of democracy as a means of acquiring legitimacy,” says Bahey el-Din Hassan, director of the Cairo institute for Human Rights Studies, in his office in a dilapidated building where the elevator takes me to the third floor and I walk up the next four.

The security services, in fact, run the state, says Mustafa.

They “secretly manipulate the entire system,” the way the army-controlled Deep State used to in Turkey but no longer does, given increasing democratization there.

“We are not just talking about police on campuses but something more sophisticated,” says Mustafa. “It’s has got worse, especially in the last five years.”

Does she worry for her own safety?

A long pause.

“No, but I am not comfortable. Being a liberal is not easy — you are targeted by the security forces as well as the religious extremists.” (More about the latter later).

Elections are a selection. Many opposition candidates are rejected, as they are in Iran, but here it’s with a twist: The mullahs in Tehran reject non-Islamists. The Mubarak regime rejects Islamists. The other day, there were 10,000 people at a Muslim Brotherhood demonstration in Alexandria, protesting that its candidates had been barred from registering.

Further, on Election Days, many voters are routinely turned away — their ID papers found wanting, or polling stations are said to be too full or busy to receive them. And, just to be sure, ballot boxes are “stuffed.” “It doesn’t matter what goes into the box but rather what comes out,” a Western diplomat tells me.

The regime has taken extra precautions for this election.

“This election is about next year’s presidential election,” says Hassan. The government faces “a crisis of legitimacy with the end of the Mubarak era. Even if he runs again next year, the question remains: Who will replace him? There is no obvious successor. And whoever emerges, what legitimacy would he have? This is a great source of fear inside the regime.”

The less legitimacy, the harder the regime prepares the ground for a trouble-free re-election of Mubarak — or a smooth transition.

In recent weeks, hundreds have been jailed, critical journalists fired.

Media have been ordered to get permits for uplinks for live coverage Nov. 28. That means no on-the-spot reporting from the electoral frontlines and, crucially, no footage of the kind seen in the 2005 election, when cameras caught much chicanery at the polling stations.

There are new Iran-like restrictions on mobile phones and text messaging. SMS aggregators must obtain new licences.

“This election is a joke,” says Ayman Nour, who ran against Mubarak in the 2005 presidential election and was marched off to jail on what were seen as trumped-up charges. He now leads a political party that is boycotting the election.

There will be no international monitors. The government does not allow them.

Judicial oversight has also been dispensed with, the responsibility transferred to the government’s Supreme Electoral Commission.

Hassan has a theory about why the Muslim Brotherhood is about to be bounced as the opposition.

It was allowed to do well in 2005 in order to “shock the international community and convince it that the sole alternative to the regime were the Islamists.”

That, along with the election of Hamas a year later in the Gaza Strip, did the trick. The Bush administration and the European Union backed off calling for political reform.

Even Barack Obama has been muted. While he refused to be photographed with Mubarak when he came here in June 2009 to deliver his famous speech to the Muslim world, he has granted the Mubarak regime a veto on American funding to Egyptian pro-democracy NGOs.

Now “the regime faces no serious pressure” from the West, only a critical statement here and there, says Hassan. “It realizes that these statements are merely attempts by American and European officials to mollify their own constituencies.”

Hosni and Suzanne Mubarak have two sons, Alaa and Gamal, whose reputations are tarnished by allegations they benefit from government contacts.

Gamal (“Jimmy”), the heir-presumptive, is 47. He studied and worked abroad as a banker. In 2002, he was made head of the ruling party’s policy wing, and has been credited with ushering in a liberalized business environment — cutting taxes and tariffs, and attracting foreign investment (mostly in real estate).

Exports are up, especially from the nine Qualified Industrial Zones, products of which get tariff-free entry to the United States if they have 11 per cent Israeli content. It’s part of the Israel-United States free trade deal, into which Egypt was brought in.

The economy, growing at 7 per cent, has thrown up a new class of super-rich. You see them partying at five-star hotels or in gated communities outside Cairo. One I visited on an 18-hole golf course, with monster homes and a lovely club house, draws millions of gallons of water from the receding Nile.

Such unconscionable deeds are resented even more when the economic pie remains relatively small — a GDP of $150 billion (a tenth of Canada’s, with two-and-a-half times our population).

The poor are getting poorer. Unemployment is around 25 per cent, inflation at 11 per cent (but double that for those who don’t access subsidized bread, fruit and vegetables — and schools).

Nearly 40 per cent of Egyptians live on $2 a day. A quarter of the population lives in shanty towns, most of them in Cairo, which has grown to at least 20 million.

The city, once a jewel, is crumbling. Paint and plaster are peeling from grand old buildings. Roads are clogged. So are public hospitals. Infrastructure is collapsing. The government has other priorities or, as most people think, politicians, civil servants and contractors are pocketing the sums allocated for public works.

Much of the public wrath is directed at Gamal for ushering in crony capitalism and not caring for ordinary Egyptians.

The old guard around Mubarak opposes Gamal partly because he is a civilian, whereas every president since the 1952 overthrow of monarchy has come from the army — Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Mubarak.

The army and security establishment favours Omar Suleiman, chief of intelligence. He is also valued by Washington, for having the most detailed dossiers on Mohammed Atta, the ring leader of 9/11, Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy to Osama bin Laden, and other al Qaeda figures.

The most credible candidate would be Mohamed ElBaradei, the retired chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. It is too early to tell whether he can rally the nation — and even if he does, whether he’d be allowed to run.

Is revolution brewing? There certainly are parallels to the Shah’s Iran in the 1970s, including growing anti-Americanism.

One view is that “the Egyptians don’t have it in them,” as one diplomat put it. The other is that there’s no charismatic leader to lead them.

“I don’t sense a revolution brewing,” says Bahgat. “But I cannot miss the rising anger of the public over economic hardship, corruption, injustice, daily harassment by police.

“Nasser had a lot to show for his years, whether you agreed or not.

“Sadat made war and he made peace.

“Mubarak’s greatest achievement is that he has maintained ‘stability.’ But in the process, he has completely destroyed all the institutions and sucked the oxygen out of the system.

“He calls it stability; we call it stagnation. The current situation is untenable.

“The public want Washington to withdraw its support of the regime. The public thinks: ‘Minus U.S. support, we can take on the regime.’”

CAIRO — A senior official with Egypt's ruling party said Thursday that President Hosni Mubarak would seek another term in office next year, the clearest indication yet that the ailing strongman plans to extend his 29-year grip on the Arab world's most populous nation.

"The next president is President Hosni Mubarak," Alieddin Hilal, a spokesman for Mubarak's National Democratic Party, said in an interview on Alhurra, an Arabic-language satellite channel funded by the U.S. government.

The announcement had been widely expected. Mubarak, 82, a staunch U.S. ally, has shown few signs of relinquishing his near-total hold on power. He's barred official foreign observers from next month's parliamentary elections, and he recently imposed a fresh set of restrictions on independent media and opposition politicians.

Still, earlier comments by party officials and concerns over Mubarak's health — he underwent gall bladder surgery in Germany in March — had left room for speculation about the president's intentions. Many observers think that he's grooming his 46-year-old son, Gamal, to succeed him.

Mubarak, who'd be seeking a sixth term, earlier this year renewed a three-decade emergency law that restricts free speech and allows security services broad powers to arrest people without charge and hold them indefinitely. Campaign and election laws are tilted heavily in favor of Mubarak's party.

Earlier this year, Sens. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and John McCain, R-Ariz., drafted a Senate resolution that called on Mubarak to repeal the emergency law and ensure free and fair parliamentary elections, and they urged the Obama administration to put more pressure on the regime to expand democratic freedoms.

Michele Dunne, an expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington research center, said the Obama administration wouldn't call on Mubarak to step aside for fear of jeopardizing relations with an important ally.

"I think there is growing concern in Washington," Dunne said. "But the U.S. administration would be very reluctant to say anything directly about the succession. . . . They would call for a more open political electoral process, but they will make sure not to appear to favor any specific candidate."

With the presidential election still a year off, however, Dunne said that it was too early to know Mubarak's real plans and that the party's announcements were meant to show that Mubarak remains in control.

Hilal, the party spokesman, said the party would formally nominate Mubarak next August or September, with the election provisionally scheduled for next October.

Amid a string of firings and arrests targeting the press and opposition politicians, media watchdog groups charge that Mubarak's regime is trying to silence critics ahead of the Nov. 28 parliamentary elections.

More than 160 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest parliamentary bloc after the ruling party, have been arrested since the group announced that it would field candidates in the elections. The group is officially banned by the government, but its candidates won 88 parliamentary seats in the last elections, in 2005, by running as independents.

"We need a new era to begin," said Ali Abdelfattah, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood. "We've already experienced 29 years of Mubarak, during which time none of his promises of prosperity for the Egyptian people came true."

Earlier this month, firebrand journalist Ibrahim Eissa, an outspoken critic of the regime, was fired as the editor in chief of the independent daily newspaper al-Dustour. A satellite television program that Eissa hosts was taken off the air, as was a program on a Saudi-owned channel that recently criticized state media as praising Gamal Mubarak excessively.

© Copyright (c) McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

Members of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood announce that the Islamist group will participate in next month's parliamentary elections

Mohamed ElBaradei's hopes of drawing attention to the sham of Egyptian democracy via a mass elections boycott were dealt a major blow last week, when the Muslim Brotherhood opted to take part in the polls. That's because the Brotherhood is by far the largest opposition group in Egypt, and the only one with a genuine grass-roots organizational base. Despite being restricted to running in just 30% of the 518 seats in parliament — and the expectation that direct repression and vote-rigging will deny it victory even in most of those — the Brotherhood's leaders believe they'll accomplish more by contesting the November elections than by staying out. (Watch TIME's video "10 Questions for Mohamed ElBaradei.")

Accomplishment for Egypt's political opposition is, of course, a relative term — neither boycotting nor participating in elections notorious for intimidation and abuse of opposition parties, low voter turnout and vote-rigging is going to end the National Democratic Party's iron grip on power. For the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a banned organization that fields its candidates as independents, the elections are about a lot more than winning seats. "It's an opportunity to check in with their constituents, as well as potentially recruit [members]," explains Joshua Stacher, a political scientist at Kent State University in Ohio.

"The Brothers actually run people who live in their districts, which seems very intuitive and makes a lot of sense, but the [ruling] National Democratic Party doesn't do this," he adds. "They roll in with the big 'We're going to make 7 million jobs' and 'We're going to expand civil-political rights' and all this stuff. They're hoping that somebody's going to latch onto something they say, but it's not directly speaking to a constituency." (See pictures of Cairo's women challenging conservative norms.)

So for the Brotherhood, contesting elections is part of a long-term strategy against a regime that has no intention of relinquishing power by allowing a free and fair ballot. Analysts speculate that the government won't tolerate a repeat of even the sizable minority win for the Muslim Brotherhood in the 2005 race, when it captured 88 seats. Indeed, it's the repression that ElBaradei, the popular former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had hoped to expose by promoting an elections boycott. The Brotherhood and a cluster of Egypt's weaker opposition parties had initially considered the idea, but most eventually decided to take part.

Not surprisingly, the Brothers' decision has not pleased ElBaradei's supporters. "From our point of view, the position of the Brotherhood is a split for the ranks of the national force for change," says Abdelrahman Samir, an activist in ElBaradei's National Association for Change. He criticizes the Islamists for subverting the boycott call only "in the interest of strengthening their organization, and exploiting vulnerabilities to spread their ideas among the classes of people."

But Stacher questions the political logic of staying away from the polls: "The strategy of a boycott is all predicated on the idea that somebody on the outside will watch and see a boycotted authoritarian election and do something about it," he says. But the manipulation of the vote and the violence against opposition candidates have been widely exposed in previous elections to little effect. It's not as if there's widespread belief that Egypt allows genuine competitive elections. So the Brotherhood views its participation as part of a strategy to build up opposition forces and capacity. (See "Egypt's Opposition: To Boycott Elections, or Not?")

"The goal is to push the regime into the corner," says Essam el-Erian, a Brotherhood spokesman. He acknowledges that electoral fraud will restrict opposition gains in parliament. "But when we boycott, the regime can say that there was no fraud; that the election was free and fair," he adds. "When we participate, the regime has to face us." (Comment on this story.)

That face-off is already well under way. The Interior Ministry has issued threats against any Brotherhood plans to use the group's traditional slogan, "Islam Is the Solution" — religious platforms are banned in Egyptian politics. University students across Egypt this week held protests to condemn administrative decisions to ban Muslim Brotherhood–affiliated students from participating in student elections. And el-Erian told TIME Wednesday that around 50 of its members have been arrested since the group announced its plans to participate in the elections.

"No matter what, they will take part because that gives them visibility," says Walid Kazziha, a professor of political science at the American University in Cairo. "I know that ElBaradei wouldn't want them to take part. They are accused of splitting the ranks of the opposition. But for the Muslim Brothers, this is the more suitable strategy because it's not just elections for them — it's something wider than that."

Indeed, the Brothers are the oldest opposition organization and have survived decades of battering by authoritarian regimes, building grass-roots support by promoting policy solutions rooted in Islam and by offering a range of social services to a population that has long complained of government neglect. Few analysts believe that the Brothers will win more than a quarter of their current 88-seat tally in November. But elections themselves, and whatever minority representation they secure in parliament, give the group another platform for its long-term strategy of building a popular power base.

That power base is what allows the Brotherhood, rather than ElBaradei or other emerging reformists, to call the shots in Egyptian opposition politics. "The Muslim Brotherhood will make their contacts; they will assert themselves. They're not thinking in the short term," says Kazziha. "This is a movement that has lasted now for almost 80 years while other movements have come and gone." ElBaradei, of course, has been back in Egypt for less than a year, and is a political neophyte.

And for their part, the Brothers say there are gains to be made from playing the game, even when the game is rigged. "The lesson is not to be absent, not to be out of the scene," says Erian. "We are living in this society. We are a popular power. We must represent our popularity as a whole and in the system."

Now the nation knows. That doggy in the White House window is worth $1,600 (£1,100). Pretty pricey for a pooch - but then he is part of a household that is worth many millions of dollars, according to the latest financial disclosures filed, as US law requires, by the First Couple, Barack and Michelle Obama.

The forms, posted for all to see on the internet, are a window into the not inconsiderable wealth of America's top family, generated partly by royalties from the president's two memoirs, Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope.

Last year, they earned him between $2m and $10m. His assets are between $2.3m and $7.7m - the forms show ranges of value rather than specific figures.

Joe Biden, the Vice President, seems to have a much leaner financial cushion. His form reveals that he received a signed first edition of a James Joyce book, Anna Livia Plurabelle, from a fan last year worth $3,500. He lists his overall assets at between only $155,029 and $675,000.

It might behove a political leader to go to the dog pound for a puppy rather than indulge in so expensive a pedigreed pet. Happily for Mr Obama, this animal - Bo, a Portuguese water dog - is listed as a gift. He was presented to the Obamas by the late Senator Edward Kennedy

Also entered in the documents are the $1.4m Mr Obama received from the Nobel committee for the peace prize he won last year and - more importantly - his decision to donate all of it to charity. The value of the prize medal and diploma, if anyone is wondering, is "not readily ascertainable", the form says.

Under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, all top federal officials are required annually to disclose their financial interests.

Thus we can see that Mr Obama has an impressive range of assets including in stocks, college education funds for his two daughters, mutual funds, bank accounts and bonds.

In these days of deep distrust of Washington and politicians generally, it might be better for the likes of Mr Obama to be able to demonstrate relative penury.

Leaders the world over try to claim proximity to the "ordinary voter"; large fortunes can be an impediment.

The carefully crafted image of Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, as a spokesperson for working Americans has taken a hit recently, for instance, with revelations that her recent book, burgeoning TV career and work on the speaking circuit has earned her about $12m.

Even the elections in Britain saw an attempt by some to paint then candidate, now Prime Minister, David Cameron, as a member of the elite and therefore out of touch.

A 2008 News of the World report put Mr Cameron's personal fortune at £3.2m. Both he and his wife, Samantha, whose mother is Viscountess Astor, stand to gain more through future inheritances.

Too much cash in the attic may pose greater difficulties for a parliamentary leader, however, than for a president, who is both politician and head of state. Assuming it is honestly gained (and is not swollen by the plundering of taxpayer pockets), being rich need not be a problem, especially if yours not a socialist state.

In Chile, voters had no difficulty recently electing Sebastian Pinera as their new president, whose first task upon taking office was to dispose of his $1.5bn stake in the national airline, Lan Chile.

That Mr Cameron concluded his first cabinet meeting with an announcement that he and all his ministers would be taking a 5 per cent pay cut was a sign that he is wary of the connection between public appreciation of politicians and what they earn, particularly in a time of austerity. The biggest scandal in British politics in recent years, after all, was about MPs and fiddled expenses.

It helps Mr Obama that most of his fortune is coming not from the public purse - he is paid a salary of $400,000 a year - or from a past career, say on Wall Street, but from the two books. It is the voters, after all, who have been buying them.

TWENTY RICHEST WORLD LEADERS

1. King of Thailand, £20bn

The longest-serving monarch in the world as well as the richest, 82-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej's wealth includes large amounts of land and property. However the Thai government has disputed his position as the wealthiest head of state, saying that much of this is not part of his personal wealth. Regardless of his personal finances, in a country where the rural poor are currently locked in violent protests against an unpopular government, he remains a universally loved figure.

2. Sultan of Brunei, £13.5bn

Brunei's oil and gas reserves have kept the Sultan among the world's richest, and he spends accordingly: as well as having a love for luxury cars, for his 50th birthday in 1996 he hired Michael Jackson to perform.

3. Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan (President of UAE), £12bn

As the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa has been a driving force during its recent spending spree in its attempts to establish itself as a cultural hub. A pro-Western moderniser and camel-racing fan.

4. King of Saudi Arabia, £11.5bn

Saudi Arabia's vast oil reserves are behind the wealth of King Abdullah, whose grandeur is such that he has a city named after him - King Abdullah Economic City - currently being constructed on the west coast of the country.

5. Silvio Berlusconi, £6bn

Varied business interests - including television stations, magazines and his beloved AC Milan - have made the Italian prime minister a very rich man indeed. His many critics charge that he has used his political career to maximise that wealth.

6. Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein, £2.5bn

The fortune of Liechtenstein's monarch comes from the royal family's ownership of the country's LGT Bank, and the prince owns palaces and land in Austria. He expanded his power in the tiny country in a 2003 referendum.

7. Emir of Qatar £1.4bn

The head of a country with the world's third largest natural gas reserves, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani's expensive tastes include art as well as horse and camel racing. His $137m loan in 1996 was crucial to the founding of the Al Jazeera news network.

8. Asif Ali Zardari, President of Pakistan, £1.2bn

Nicknamed "Mr 10 per cent" thanks to the corruption allegations that have dogged him, Benazir Bhutto's widower is accused by the National Accountability Bureau of holding $1.5bn in assets abroad.

9= Prince Albert II of Monaco, £700m

Assets of the wealthy Grimaldi family includes art, real estate and Société des Bains de Mer, which owns Monaco's casinos. Prince Albert, a lifelong bachelor with two illegitimate children, is the son of Hollywood actress Grace Kelly.

9= Sebastián Piñera, President of Chile, £700m

Responsible for the introduction of the credit card to Chile, Pinera sold many of his investments when he became president last year. He agreed to give up a television station under pressure over conflicts of interest this week.

11. Sultan of Oman, £470m

Sultan Qaboos, who came to power when he overthrew his father in 1970, suffered considerable losses in the credit crunch, but remains vastly wealthy. The Sandhurst graduate has used his fortune to finance the restoration of mosques across the country.

12. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of Equatorial Guinea, £400m

Once labelled Africa's worst dictator, he deposited half a billion dollars from the national treasury into private family accounts in 2003 to "fight corruption".

13. The Queen, £300m

Even excluding state-owned properties like Windsor Castle and national treasures like the royal art collection, and despite the downturn, the Queen's homes, business interests, horses, art collection and jewellery have kept her personal fortunes in rude health.

14. Emir of Kuwait, £270m

Unlike most other Gulf leaders, Sheikh Sabah's fortune depends on a stipend from the state - which he took steps to increase considerably by passing a law that adjusted it from $25m to $188m annually after he acceded to the throne in 2006.

15. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, £135m

Although her mother put the family's major cultural assets into national trusts, Beatrix is still worth about $200m. Her family gets an allowance of €5.6m a year - plus €93m or so in expenses.

16. King Mswati III of Swaziland, £68m

As the sole trustee of a $10bn national fund, Mswati augments his personal wealth with state money. Each of his 13 brides has a palace, a retinue and a BMW; meanwhile, two thirds of the country live in poverty.

17. Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia, £41m

Although Rudd's own background is in bureaucracy, he enjoys considerable wealth as the husband of Therese Rein, an entrepreneur who sold her recruitment business in 2007 to avoid conflicts of interest.

18. John Key, New Zealand Prime Minister, £25m

The former investment banker amassed a tidy sum before entering politics with the right-wing National Party in 2002. He owns properties in London and Hawaii as well as his home country.

19. Lee Myung-bak, President of South Korea, £16m

Lee came from a poverty-stricken background to rise at Hyundai until he became chief executive. Cleared of fraud shortly before his inauguration in 2008.

20. Milo Djukanovic, President of Montenegro, £10m

Mysteriously wealthy, he denies allegations that he was involved in a lucrative tobacco smuggling ring.

Toby Green

I wonder why is Hosny Mubarak is not in this list? He owns at least 4 - 5 Billions of dollars collected by sucking the blood of poor Egyptians !!!

The spectre of plague stalked the world last year with its constant companion, fear. Schools and stadiums were closed in Mexico, tourists from Egypt to Singapore were quarantined, and the surgical mask became a universal fashion accessory across Asia. Yet predictions that the global death toll from swine flu could reach 7.5 million were well off the mark. At most, the virus killed 14,000 people, and some of those had pre-existing conditions or had been infected by other dangerous bugs as well. Against a background death toll from seasonal flu of up to 500,000, the new H1N1 strain was invisible.

Professor Ulrich Keil, a World Health Organisation (WHO) adviser on heart disease, said the decision to declare a pandemic had led to a "gigantic misallocation" of health budgets. "We know the great killers are hypertension, smoking, high cholesterol, high body mass index, physical inactivity and low fruit and vegetable intake," he told the Council of Europe. Yet governments "instead wasted huge amounts of money by investing in pandemic scenarios whose evidence base is weak".

The suspicion that the response to the outbreak was an unnecessary panic has been spreading since the virus slipped from the front pages. Even the WHO, the UN body that first punched the big red button, may be having doubts. An external committee has been set up to review its reaction and will deliver an interim report this week, though at the moment no bombshells are expected.

The WHO faces two main charges. The first is that between the first cases of H1N1 being reported in March and the declaration of a full, phase 6 pandemic by its director-general, Dr Margaret Chan, in June, the organisation changed its definition of a pandemic. Critics say the old definition required that a virus result in "enormous numbers of deaths and illness". The new definition applies only if the virus is new, if it spreads easily between people, and if the population has little or no immunity to it. A bug that causes a mild case of the sniffles could qualify.

A spokesman for the organisation insists there has been no change at all - that the old definition was an error on a single web page about bird flu, the last great influenza scare. But Peter Doshi, a doctoral candidate at MIT whose thesis is on science, politics and influenza policy, argued in a paper in the British Medical Journal in September that the old definition had been widely applied by the WHO since at least 2003.

The second charge, prominently made by Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, the former head of health at the Council of Europe, is that the WHO is unduly influenced by the drugs industry, which stood to make a fortune from selling anti-virals and vaccines. The Swiss giant Novartis, for example, saw its profits jump by nearly a third in the first quarter of this year to $2.95bn, much of it from delivering swine flu vaccines ordered last year. Debate rages over allegations that some experts who recommended the pandemic be declared, have links to drugs companies, although this has been denied. But critics note that it's hard to become an expert in the field without having some funding from big pharmaceutical companies.

Others say that the problem is due to the spread of false assumptions. Most people think, for example, that when they have flu symptoms they must have influenza. But Dr Tom Jenkins of the Cochrane Collaboration, which reviews the evidence for various medical treatments, notes that more than 200 agents can cause flu-like illnesses. Only 7.5 to 15 per cent of cases are actually influenza. Anti-viral drugs and vaccines are aimed just at this group. "To stop one new case of H1N1, you'd have to inoculate 100 people," says Dr Jenkins. "or you could get four people to wash their hands." Masks work too, he says, and so does sending people home from work if they have symptoms.

The usual justification for the massive response to H1N1 is that no one wants a repeat of the 1918 pandemic, which killed an estimated 50 million people. But scientists are not even sure if that plague was caused by influenza at all. The virus was not discovered until 1933. And outbreaks since then have been much milder.

The last time H1N1 showed up was in 1976, at a US army base. Washington ordered the immunisation of 40 million Americans before it discovered that it had only one death from the flu but hundreds of cases of severe side-effects to the vaccine. A review headed by Dr Harvey Fineberg put much of the blame on the "influenza fraternity", arguing that expert panels tend towards "group think" and should be backed up by independent scientific advice. Dr Fineberg is now chairman of the WHO's external committee evaluating its response to the 2009 outbreak whose final report next May could well lead to a radical rethink of the world's reaction to new viruses.