Some major ElBaradei stories
I don't have time to go into details here, but I wanted to flag some important stories on Mohamed ElBaradei and Egypt's future that appeared yesterday.
First, Jack Shenker has an interview and profile in the Guardian. Jack writes:
The Guardian's interview with Mohamed ElBaradei was published in three news and feature stories across a double-page spread today; if you haven't already seen the articles then they're available here:
More interestingly for those engaged in Egyptian and Middle Eastern political analysis, a full transcript of the interview is now up online. It includes lots of material that didn't make it into the news stories, and is available here.
How good of him to make the full transcript available — it's worth reading. I like this bit:
What I want to do at this stage is call for a constitutional revolution. I’m trying to break every political rule of the game, and I think it’s much more effective not to focus on individuals. And wrongly or rightly, I think everyone is doing what they think is good for the country. That’s my message now: I do not want to reopen the past, we have too much on our hands for the future. So I’m discussing policies, not individuals; I can criticise policies, but I’m not questioning the intentions or actions of individuals. And I think at this stage, that’s the right way to do it. I said from day one that I want to coalesce the Egyptian people around one great idea, which is their salvation – a move from authoritarianism to democracy.
The New Yorker also has a "Letter from Cairo" by Joshua Hammer that gives an overview of ElBaradei's challenge to Mubarak, and the prospect of a Gamal presidency. It's subscription only, but you can get an abstract here. I read the full piece, it has a good quote from Saad Eddin Ibrahim describing Gamal as a "solid C student" when he taught him at AUC, but does not offer much new.
More later, now I have to catch a train.