Friday, December 10, 2010

WikiLeaks cables cast Hosni Mubarak as Egypt's ruler for life


US ambassador tells Hillary Clinton that president will win rigged election next year, his 30th in power

Simon Tisdall
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 December 2010

"Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's long-serving president, is likely to seek re-election next year and will "inevitably" win a poll that will not be free and fair, the US ambassador to Cairo, Margaret Scobey, predicted in a secret cable to Hillary Clinton last year.....

Scobey's candid view, in a cable dated May 2009, is that Mubarak, 82, who heads the Arab world's most populous and influential nation, is most likely to die in office rather than step down voluntarily or be replaced in a plausible democratic vote. "The next presidential elections are scheduled for 2011 and if Mubarak is still alive it is likely he will run again and, inevitably, win," Scobey writes......

"Mubarak continues to state that in his view Iraq needs a 'tough, strong military officer who is fair' as leader. This telling observation, we believe, describes Mubarak's own view of himself.".....

In Mubarak's view US pressure for reform in the Shah's Iran pre-1979, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and US support for elections in Gaza that brought Hamas to power in 2006 were all policies that backfired calamitously....."

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