(Washington Post) Jackson Diehl - Following Egypt's deeply flawed parliamentary election last November, the newspaper al-Masri al-Yom reported "death threats, bribes, violence, and partisan security forces." It said that "the elections were marred by irregularities and violations carried out by a large number of [Mubarak's] National Democratic Party and independent candidates and their militias, which prevented people from entering polling stations." The fact that this was published in Cairo, and in Arabic - and that the newspaper's publisher remains a free man - is perhaps the strongest single sign that Egypt's stifling and stagnant autocracy has begun to unravel.
2006-03-28 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive