Critics of the military takeover here often say the generals’ promise of free elections is little more than a bad joke. Now a prominent former military man who cheered the takeover seems to agree: Ahmed Shafik, a former general and prime minister and the runner-up in the last presidential election, has called it a “farce.”
Mr. Shafik had not planned on making his opinion quite so public. But these days in Egypt, conversations are often not as private as they seem.
“I know very well they will fix all the ballot boxes,” Mr. Shafik said in a leaked recording of a private conversation that he authenticated Thursday. He said in the recording that he would not run because the new government was rigging the race in favor of Field Marshal Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, who led the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood last summer and is expected to enter and win the election to succeed him.
“I have taken myself out of this loop because the election is going to be a farce,” Mr. Shafik said, adding that “they will fix everything for him” and “this is going to be a comedy show.”
His comments stunned Egypt because Mr. Shafik comes from the same military elite as Field Marshal Sisi. Questioning the field marshal’s candidacy is almost heretical in the pro-military and anti-Islamist circles both officers represent, and Mr. Shafik’s comments were a rare hint of possible dissent among the business and military elite.
His cynicism about elections could pose awkward questions for the White House as well. After last summer’s military takeover, the Obama administration suspended a portion of the $1.3 billion in annual American military aid for Egypt until the new government demonstrated progress toward democracy, and the White House is still looking for a justification to restore the money.
In a statement Thursday, Mr. Shafik confirmed that he had made the recorded comments. “I say in public what I say in private,” he said, adding that he believed that military leaders would resolve all the concerns. “My confidence that the armed forces will ensure a transparent democratic and electoral process is complete and unquestionable.”
Mr. Shafik said in his statement Thursday that he had been troubled in part by the military’s overt institutional support for a presidential campaign by its chief commander. “Unimaginable,” he said. “It contradicts all the rules and the traditions that stipulate the armed forces’ complete distance from the electoral process,” he said.
The military leaders, he said, had subsequently rectified what he called that “misunderstanding.” But he said he remained concerned about the lack of guarantees against government interference in the electoral process in favor of one candidate, which he said had been the case in previous elections.
Human rights groups and international election experts have said that there is little chance the coming elections will meet the highest standards of fairness and openness. Last summer, the military said it was heeding the public call to remove Egypt’s first freely elected president. The government has since outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood; jailed almost all of its leaders, including Mr. Morsi, and thousands of its members; killed more than 1,000 of its supporters; and silenced almost all sympathetic media
Mr. Shafik, who has lived in the United Arab Emirates since he lost the 2012 race, said in the recording that he would be prepared to run for president again if Field Marshal Sisi did not.
In his statement Thursday, though, he said that to avoid splitting the vote he had thrown his support behind “the most powerful of the candidates and the closest to winning the presidency, His Excellency, the Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Sisi.”
David D. Kirkpatrick
Fuente/Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/14/world/middleeast/former-egyptian-gener...
