Egypt: Kefaya Boycotts Election

The Kefaya movement announced it will boycott the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections in Egypt. According to their leader, Abdel Halim Qandil, Kefaya instead intends to elect “an alternative president” who will seek to pressure the regime into transferring power. Once accomplished, the alternative president would then host fair and free national elections.

Discussing Mohamed ElBaradei’s announcement that he would only run as an independent in the presidential election, Qandil commended ElBaradei for his efforts but also explained “our issue now is not about individual people however. It is about how do we open the way to free elections?”

Bikya Masr passes on a report from the blog “From Mahalla to Cairo” that an entire family was detained and tortured in Alexandria.

The Arabist comments on the post from POMED’s Weekly Wire detailing Congress’ decision to allocate $50 million for an Economic Support Fund, saying the amount is less than the Egyptians had hoped for and that it is unclear if the fund will be earmarked for specific programs.  Either way, it is clear that “the US-Egypt aid relationship continues to move away to any notion of conditionality, as it has since the beginning of the Obama administration or possibly the last year or two of the Bush administration.”