EGYPT: Lawmakers have voted to change the constitution to allow Egypt's first competitive presidential election but have imposed complex rules that critics say will keep power squarely in the hands of President Hosni Mubarak and his ruling party.
The restrictions disappointed pro-democracy advocates who had hoped lawmakers would make good on Mr Mubarak's promise to hold a free and fair vote this autumn.
Under the constitutional amendment, passed on Tuesday, independents will be effectively banned from seeking the presidency. Government-sanctioned opposition parties will face complex obstacles in nominating a candidate.
Egyptian voters will be asked to approve the constitutional change in a referendum expected to be held before the end of the month.
Although Mr Mubarak will be forced for the first time to run for office if he wants to keep his job, the guidelines leave ample room for him and his party to determine which candidates will run in future elections.
"It means there is no change in the system," said Mohamed Sayyed Said, an analyst at the al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. "Most people say, 'Why bother? Why did the president propose the amendment?' He gave with the right hand, and they took away with the left hand."
Members of the ruling party described Tuesday's vote as a historic step towards democracy. The new guidelines were supported by 405 of Egypt's 454 members of parliament. "I think there's no going back on reform," said Mohamed Kamal, a member of the ruling party's policy secretariat. A senior Bush administration official called the law, "not perfect, but a step in the right direction".
"This exceeds what we thought would happen," added the official, who said he was not authorised to speak on the record. He acknowledged that the hurdles were so high for independents to qualify that "the prospects for a truly contested election are pretty slim".
In a surprise February announcement Mr Mubarak pledged to change the constitution to pave the way to open elections and democracy. His promise came days after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cancelled a visit to Cairo, reportedly to protest at the imprisonment of opposition leader Ayman Nour.
Egyptians were left guessing who would be allowed to run, who would supervise the elections and whether opposition candidates would have equal access to the country's vast state-run media.
Since the fall of the Egyptian monarchy in 1952, a lone presidential candidate has been hand-picked by the Egyptian parliament. Egyptians were allowed to vote "yes" or "no" in a single candidate referendum.
Mr Mubarak (77) has led since the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981. He has not announced whether he'll seek another term this autumn.
Even before Tuesday's vote, emotional protests had boiled over in Cairo. An anti-Mubarak coalition that calls itself Enough had scheduled a news conference on the steps of a downtown political hall. But when they arrived, they found the neighbourhood choked off with riot police and pro-Mubarak demonstrators staging a rally on the steps.
The Enough activists moved inside, where they excoriated Mr Mubarak, called upon Egyptians to boycott the referendum and pledged a campaign of civil disobedience.
"We're not going to recognise the legitimacy of the amendment. We're cutting another road," said Abdel Halim Qandeel, a newspaper editor and founder of the Enough movement. "We will try to mobilise the people to participate in civil disobedience to end the regime's rule . . . We want to pre-empt a bloody social explosion."
By heaping insurmountable handicaps on independent candidates, Tuesday's amendment continues the tradition of obstructing the Muslim Brotherhood. The banned Islamist organisation has managed to win seats in parliament - and form the biggest, albeit unrecognised, opposition bloc - by running its members as nominal independents.
"There wasn't any real change. It's just cosmetic," said Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh, a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman. "We'll continue to pressurise the regime and push for real reforms, not the carnival we have now."
The Muslim Brotherhood has been facing one of the harshest crackdowns of recent years this week. Hundreds of Brotherhood supporters are being held after days of arrests, spokesman Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh said on Tuesday.
Independents have no place running for president, parliament speaker Fathi Soror told reporters after the amendment was approved. "Those who want to reach the position of president must have enough popularity . . . If you have a party, it means you have people around you, it means you're legitimate," Mr Soror said on state television. "Somebody who's independent doesn't have much political presence."
The regime rarely grants licences to independent political parties. Since 1977 a government committee has granted licences to four parties, rejecting 63 applications in the same period. Eleven of the existing 19 political parties had to seek court injunctions to get their licences. - (LA Times-Washington Post)