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I read about this too, and I was struck by two thoughts:
- This may be an election that's about as valid as one held in China. Mubarak talks a good game about 'opening the field', but it comes right on the heels of a political faux pas, that of the arrest of a popular politcal rival and election reformist. Rice was supposed to go to Cairo for a G8 meeting and cancelled, ostensibly, because of this act. This could be little more than short term mollifying words... time will tell.
- Just because there's an election doesn't mean you always get who you want elected. There's a burgeoning hardline islamic element that has been kept surpressed on mubarek's regime...
For now, it's empty words, and a potentially dangerous game to be played in one of the few relatively stable secular states in the north african / near east region.
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