Egypt
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,324 The Mix Honorary Guru
Mubarak has stepped down. :d
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Former Member
Posts: 1,876,324 The Mix Honorary Guru
Essential support for under 25s
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Former Member
Posts: 1,876,324 The Mix Honorary Guru
Comments
Excellent stuff. Good to see it happen with so little bloodshed.
How is that not a good development? What do you expect to happen after a dictator is forced out? A transition to democratic elections in a week? The fact that military coups have been means for dictators to get into power in the past doesn't mean that this is what will happen in Egypt. But there is no other way of disposing a dictator. As long as they're in power, you can never have free and fair elections, as the likes of Mugabe have shown (and even then, he still lost yet didn't step down).
Remember it's the military who has propped up his regime for the past 30 years.
The military basically formed modern Egypt though. Mubarak spent a lot of time depoliticising them, so that they see themselves as a neutral political force serving Egypt rather than as a political force in their own right*. The attempts to deploy them to deal with the uprising failed for that reason, leaving them to be dealt with by the police and pro-Mubarak (hastily formed) militias. By the same token they showed a marked reluctance to actually move against him because that would involve them in politics.
From what I've seen of the Egyptian military my guess is that they'll be wanting to rid themselves of politics as soon as possible, though whether that'll be to a stable democractic system only time will tell.
* see what happened to Sadat for why Mubarak wanted an apolitical army
The point I am trying to make is that it's premature to celebrate Mubarak standing down. Once there is a stable freely elected regime in place, nothing much will have changed in reality.