What Livestation is Watching – Egyptian Presidential Election

Posted on May 23rd 2012 by Neil Murphy

The upcoming Presidential elections held this week will be a key moment in Egypt’s post-Mubarak history, and with the twelve very different candidates in the running the outcome will indicate how Egypt can overcome the political and economic problems that have beset the country in the past year and a half.

Fareed Zakaria on CNN provides a fascinating insight into how the election will affect the country in general. He believes that essentially the elections are not nearly as important as providing a constitution that guarantees  a liberal democracy with rights for women and freedom of speech. Zakaria also went onto say that although Islamic and religious parties are popular in the country, history has shown in other Muslim countries that this will be tempered as the electorate begins to realize that religious parties are not the best at delivering economic and political prosperity.

A BBC video shows the pride that Egyptian have voting in the first free and fair elections in the last 30 years.

It does appear that although the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic parties in general will do well in the election other concerns such as crime and improving the economy, which was badly hit in the last two years by political turmoil, will be a massive factor in the election. A report here from Al-Jazeera reports that most Egyptian seem less idealistic than they were one and a half years ago when Mubarak was ousted, and that most citizens just want  a candidate that will be able to get the economy back on the right track.

What will be the outcome of the elections taking place in Egypt this week? Will the next Egyptian President be a moderate or Islamic candidate, and can he get the country back to normality? Leave a comment below.