African press review 25 May 2012

Friday’s African Press focuses on reactions to the historic vote in Egypt to pick the country’s first democratically-elected president.

Several leading newspapers carry remarks by the former head of the UN nuclear agency, Mohamed El Baradei who hailed the end of "the culture of fear" in an interview with the Associated Press. The reform leader told the news agency that “who wins is less important than establishing national unity”, a goal that can only be achieved after Egypt's poor are fed, have jobs and have roofs over their heads.

The online newspaper Media net2 says voting has “confirmed analysts' suspicions” that only 5 of the thirteen candidates face the possibility of advancing into a run-off.

Al Masry al Youn argues that the presidential race is definitely a game of Egyptian roulette, as hundreds of millions were spent on the electoral campaigns and the media machine manipulated to make Egyptians feel that they are going through an historic experience.

The truth, according to the paper, is that the election is worthless, for it is being conducted in a society that lacks a healthy political life, one that lacks genuine parties and political power. This election will bring a useless president who will be unable to change the structure of the old regime.

Daily News Egypt reports that a group of activists from Sinai are en route to Cairo, 125 kms from their hometown, to take part in a demonstration in Tahrir Square. Their mission, the paper reports, is to push for political reform and an end to the rule of army generals who have been running Egypt since Hosni Mubarak was removed from power by a mass uprising last year.

Some African newspapers have also posted comments about the political transition underway in Egypt.

Who's who in 2012 Egyptian presidential election

In Kenya, The Nation comments that “after decades of pre-determined results, for the first time, the outcome of the vote is wide open, as the election pits Islamists against secularists and revolutionaries against old regime members”.

In South Africa, Mail and Guardian states in an editorial, that “Egypt's revolution won't end with the presidential election”. Beyond Tahrir Square, the paper says, “Egypt's uprising is one that intersects with grassroots struggles in Europe and that's what the elites fear most”.

According to the M and G, “the Islamist/secularist divide gets all the attention as it’s one fault-line among many which sidesteps the deeper rumblings of discontent”. The Johannesburg newspaper says, “as long as the basic tenets of Egypt’s Chicago-school economic orthodoxy remain stable, men with beards versus women with no headscarves is a political divide that western policymakers and Egyptian elites are happy to contend with”.