Background

In 1956, Gamal Abdel-Nasser was elected as Egyptian President with 99.9% of the vote, as the only candidate running. This was directly after a new constitution had been issued, which allowed Egyptians to approve or reject a presidential candidate through a public referendum system.

Following his death in 1970, Nasser was replaced by Anwar El-Sadat who established a new constitution that preserved the referendum system, but added that a candidate needed approval by two-thirds of parliamentary representatives.

When Sadat was assassinated in 1981 during a military parade, Hosni Mubarak succeeded him as president. He gained 98% of the vote in his first election through a referendum, and was then re-elected four times by the same system in his first 24 years in office.

In 2005, Mubarak was obligated to revise the constitution by instituting Egypt's first ever multi-candidate presidential election in place of the referendum system. This was done under pressure from the US government, led by former president George W. Bush. Supported by his ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), Mubarak won the election that year with 88% of the votes.

Finally, in February 2011, Mubarak was ousted from power following 18 days of demonstrations and labor union strikes. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has asserted power during the interim period until a new president is elected.

Why are the Elections Relevant?

Following Mubarak’s ouster, Egypt held parliamentary elections for the People's Assembly at the end of 2011. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party won 47% of seats, while the ultraconservative Salafist Al-Nour Party came second with over 24% of the votes.

Formerly, the president was elected by the People's Assembly and confirmed by a referendum. However, after Mubarak's amending of the constitution in 2005, the president is now elected to serve a six-year term by popular vote.

Since Mubarak’s ouster, the SCAF has been in power and is led by Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi. Although the former president was dismissed in early 2011, it is perceived by many that Egypt retains rulings and policies of the previous regime due to the ongoing military rule.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC) disqualified 10 out of the 23 candidates. These included Omar Suleiman, the former Head of Intelligence, who did not garner enough votes. Calls from the Egyptian people to ban members of the NDP who served under Mubarak preceded the decision by the SPEC.

Ahmed Shafiq, however, served as Mubarak's prime minister but is still in the running for presidency. He was initially disqualified because of his association with the former regime, but had this decision overturned with a last minute appeal.

Khairat el-Shater, the Freedom and Justice Party’s official candidate, was disqualified due to past criminal charges. El-Shater was previously sentenced and imprisoned during Mubarak’s political crackdown, but released in February 2011.

Instead, Mohammad Morsi has replaced El-Shater as their back-up candidate. Morsi is the chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood's political wing.

Hazem Abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Salafist, was also disqualified because of his late mother's US citizenship, which violates one of the rules for candidacy.

Among the candidates still running are Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh and Amr Moussa. Dubbed as a “moderate” Islamist, Aboul Futuh is a former Muslim Brotherhood member, and is now being supported by the Salafi Al-Nour party, following Abu Ismail’s disqualification. He resigned from his work with the party after announcing his candidacy in 2011, due to the Brotherhood's decision at the time to not enlist a candidate. Moussa, an independent runner, served as Mubarak's foreign minister and as the secretary general of the Arab League.

The elections have the potential to act as a turning point for Egypt as the country aims to shift away from military rule. Until then, the future of the Arab world’s most populated country remains far from clear.

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After nearly nine years, the Iraq war was declared officially over as the last US forces withdrew on December 18. The war began in 2003 under the Bush administration, when the US and its allies invaded Iraq on the basis that Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq, possessed weapons of mass destruction. From then, it took less than a month for Iraq's capital city Baghdad to fall. The war was opposed by many worldwide, and soon gained further unpopularity as the claims that Saddam was hiding weapons and was supporting al-Qaeda were uncovered as false, while the number of deaths increased.

Following the invasion and subsequent occupation, Saddam was captured, tried in an Iraqi court and executed; the US lost its honour through the story of the Abu Ghraib torture and abuse; the Iraqi people elected a new government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki; and a three-year insurgency ensued. Barack Obama completed the full US withdrawal from Iraq at the end of 2011, following the end of combat missions in 2010. However, the US embassy in Baghdad still has a significant presence in Iraq and boasts 16,000 staff with several thousand private security contractors.

The Bush administration promised that the war and overthrow of Saddam would provide a better, more stabilized life for Iraqis, while President Obama stated at the end of 2011 that the US was leaving behind a “sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq.” Yet, Iraq's present condition seems to negate any sense of certainty and hope these claims once held.

Post-war Iraq is a country deeply affected by frequent violence and suicide bombings, a shortage of clean water, where only 43% of citizens in rural areas have access to safe drinking water, and poor electricity supply and sanitation facilities. Iraq’s is a broken economy, facing sectarian strife and a lack of security.

Sectarian strife has arguably caused a large portion of the political corruption Iraqis are now facing. Prime Minister Maliki, in his second term in office, has been accused by rivals of leading Iraq to a civil war. The root of the problem stems from discord between the Shi'a and Sunni sects. On December 19, a day after the last US military forces withdrew, Maliki ordered an arrest warrant for vice president Tariq al-Hashimi on terrorism charges. Two days later, he placed deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq on extended leave. Both Hashimi and Mutlaq are two of the highest-ranking Sunni politicians, as opposed to Maliki, who is a Shi'a.

Mutlaq, in an interview with Al-Jazeera, openly stated discontent and disagreement with Maliki's current state of affairs: "My advice to him [Maliki] is that he should leave his chair because he is the reason behind all that is happening in Iraq because he turned into a real dictator in this country.” Mutlaq also believes that the way Maliki is running the country “will lead to chaos and a civil war.”

Meanwhile, many Iraqis are asking for political and economic reform, which will not happen without compromise on Maliki's behalf. Others are asking for early political elections if the leaders fail to resolve their current dissensions.

The post Iraq: The Aftermath appeared first on 51勛圖.

A summary of the events which have affected Yemen since the start of the ongoing revolution.

One year ago, Yemenis began a tumultuous and catastrophic uprising against their government. The revolution, which began in February 2011, was inspired by the Tunisian and Egyptian revolts.

Yemen’s revolution initially began as an uprising against high levels of poverty, high unemployment rates, poor economic conditions, and the government’s modest and minimal proposals to revise its constitution in the wake of the Arab Spring. Yemen, one of the poorest and least developed countries in the Arab world, suffers from a 35% unemployment rate, and a quickly diminishing supply of natural resources. Oil, its main source of economic revenue, is expected to be depleted by 2017. Along with political and economic turmoil, the people of Yemen face restrictions on their freedom of speech, the press, and religion.

Meanwhile, within less than a month, the demonstrations shifted from an attack against poor living conditions to a new target: overthrowing the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

On February 2, six days after one of the first major demonstrations in Sana’a, Saleh – in an attempt to appease growing discontent – declared that he would not run for reelection in 2013, nor would he pass power to his son. Yet despite this claim, tens of thousands of protestors continued to rally in cities such as Sana’a, Ta’izz, and Aden. Though some demonstrations were peaceful, most grew violent and fatalistic as military defectors and Yemeni tribes joined the fight against Saleh's violent crackdown on protestors and opposition forces. The Human Rights Watch confirmed 225 deaths and over 1,000 wounded, as of October 1, 2011.

However, it was not until November, when Saleh finally signed the Gulf Cooperation Council's (GCC) agreement – after failing to sign it many times prior to this – that the Yemeni people could see any semblance of hope. The GCC, in an effort to mediate the situation, had proposed an initiative in April that would transfer Saleh’s power to a national unity government. Saleh agreed to sign the deal three separate times but backed away each time.

Many protestors rejected and criticized the GCC initiative for being too passive about Saleh’s treatment. The opposition initially refused to sign the deal as well, disapproving of Saleh’s immunity from prosecution. However, on November 23, after ten months of territorial unrest, President Saleh signed the GCC’s agreement which called for the transfer of power to the vice-president within 30 days. The initiative has led for Saleh to stand down as president before the elections.

Yemen’s elections are to be held on February 21, 2012. Last month, Yemen’s opposition group and ruling party met to discuss and create joint committees to run the election. According to the Yemen Post, politicians and opposition members believe that these elections will promote positive and “radical changes” in Yemen. After the elections, constitutional reforms will be considered, which includes the superseding of the current presidential system for a more proportionally represented parliamentary one. The GCC initiative permits a two-year transitional period which will lead to the parliamentary elections.

However, the immunity of Saleh and members of the government from prosecution has not deterred protestors from demonstrating against the GCC deal and the subsequent transfer of power to the vice-president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The fact that Hadi is the only candidate running in the elections has led to criticism and fears of a low voter turnout. Indeed, the future of Yemen is far from clear.

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