

Mubarak says that he will not be leaving office - jim_h
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/02/10/live-blog-feb-10-egypt-protests

======
csomar
The day before Tunisia dictator departure, he made a talk to the Tunisian
people. (It's good to note here that in 13 January no one is calling to his
departure, but just angry population due to the situation).

The president made some good decisions: lowered the prices of food, removed
Internet censorship (yes, even Wikileaks worked), said that we can protest
freely, promised to sue the snipers....

After the talk, I didn't feel like that something has changed [1]. Actually,
me and my family and my friends, nothing has really changed and it's like he
had said nothing. I was happy with YouTube uncensored, not more. The day after
that one, Tunisians walked in masses asking for his departure.

What I wanted to say here is that the scenario is quite different. ZBA
(Tunisia old president) worked on his last talk to lower the tensions. It
hadn't worked out. Now in Egypt, the leaders are rising the tensions (asking
the protests to go home and actually not giving anything). I'm seriously
afraid about tomorrow that the current government still has plans to flow more
blood.

[1] I noted my feeling because some journalists that day said that the talk is
revolutionary (like opening the doors for opposition). I think, and from
experience, after 23 and 29 years of the life under such regime, what the
population wants is the leader and his party to go and not jobs, money or
freedom.

------
obiefernandez
I'm glued to AlJazeera at the moment and have definitely been following the
whole story with enthusiastic interest since the beginning.

BUT

Why are we discussing this topic here again? Seems completely off-topic...

~~~
jeromec
You're right that according to the site's guidelines
(<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>) political stories are usually
off-topic.

 _Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon._

However, there is an exception given for "interesting new phenomenon". I would
say revolutions of a scale not seen in a region for thousands of years would
qualify.

~~~
tptacek
It is completely off-topic.†

People will want meat to dig into for a meta-argument about global politics
and I'm not going to offer it up, but let it just be said: it's very bad for
HN that this stuff is being covered so prominently on the site. It absolutely,
positively a slippery slope.

The site is clearly tacking away from serving entrepreneurial hackers and
towards serving smart people who want a place to talk about everything they
care deeply about.

I'm not writing my goodbye note or anything, but I'm having more and more of
my best conversations in private cliques and off HN because HN is becoming
less and less hospitable to those kinds of conversations.

† _Need evidence? Graham appears to have manually weighted it off the front
page; just a little while ago, a Mubarak story was parked there with 237
votes._

~~~
_delirium
Eh, I don't see it as any worse than any of the other miscellaneous
distractions that've cropped up over the year I've been posting here
(admittedly I don't know much of what it was like before then). Sometimes
they're the top thing for a day or two, but not _that_ big a proportion
overall. We had 2 or 3 weeks where for some reason
fitness/exercise/weightlifting was a big thing here ("hacking your body"),
then there was a flurry of articles on dating and pick-up artists ("hacking
dating"), etc. And generic politics/economics threads date back a few years,
from what I can tell in the archives (a million rounds of libertarians v.
social-democrats).

edit: As just one example, here's a 2007 HN debate on unions, with a mixture
of good discussion and political acrimony, and a side thread where people
debate whether this kind of debate belongs on HN, or should stay on reddit:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20249>

~~~
nir
People tend to have much stronger opinions/prejudice on politics than on
fitness.

It's interesting to read non-hacking discussions in HN when they are from a
perceptive (vs. judgmental) standpoint. As it is now, there isn't really much
difference between Egypt threads here and in Reddit (yeah, I know we're not
supposed to compare. HN isn't Reddit yet, but HN geo-political discussions
are)

------
foenix
Full story is up:
[http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/2011210...](http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/2011210172519776830.html)

------
silverlake
Mubarak is baiting the protesters to become violent so he has an excuse to
crack down on them. This will get messy soon.

~~~
ugh
I very much doubt that the military would be willing to follow such orders,
even given violent incidents. They might but I don’t think that Mubarak has
currently anything like absolute power over the military.

~~~
Qz
The military has never really been Mubarak's tool of repression, but rather
the police force as well as hired thugs.

~~~
ugh
The problem for the police and hired thugs is that the military is on the
street. I don’t think cracking down on the protestors is currently possible
without the support of the military.

I think that the military is the key actor: Will they use violence is the big
question.

~~~
Qz
Well that's the big question if Feb 2 happens again. You'll recall that the
military was on the streets for that entire debacle and did next to nothing.

------
jim_h
Some key elements of the speech. Not exact wording, but key phrases.

"I announced that I will not be running in the next presidential elections."
"I also announced that I will remain shouldering the responsibilities until
September."

~~~
allwein
When I heard that, and given the political corruption there, I'm anticipating
that he's going to be unanimously re-elected by write-in vote or something
even though he's not actually "running".

------
teyc
Maybe we can turn this into a useful HNer discussion.

Has anyone been involved with enterprise sales where one part of the company
is supportive of the project while another isn't. The worst thing is no one
knows what is really going to happen and a turf war is about to break out. The
US administration is like the sales guy trying to influence the outcome, but
really has very little ability to guide the result.

------
ErrantX
I think... the protesters won't accept it. I also think the ball is in the
military's court now, they've come down quite heavily on the side of the
protesters.

Crucially the army leaders seem to have made some quite strong statements
tonight when it looked like he was leaving.

------
_delirium
Strange. The military was hinting pretty strongly all day that something major
would happen in this speech, but the speech seems generic and has no real
concessions over the previous one. Wonder if the military was the one
misleading, or being misled.

~~~
radicaldreamer
Could be posturing by some in the military for a coup attempt

------
stcredzero
Mubarak has very strong personal motivations for staying and executing a calm
hand-off of power. Other dictators have expatriated themselves suddenly, then
later discovered their former countries _repatriating their money_.

I suspect Mubarak knows he's finished. But he knows that he has to make an
orderly withdrawal and broker deals to ensure his family is provided for in
their accustomed style. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to play well
with that crowd. This looks to me a bit too much like the situation in
Tienanmen Square.

~~~
gaius
_Other dictators have expatriated themselves suddenly, then later discovered
their former countries repatriating their money._

I don't think Mubarak has to worry about that. His close friend King Abdullah
of Saudi Arabia has already stated any aid that the US withdraws, he will make
up. Money is not an issue in this.

~~~
cabalamat
It's not aid from the USA that Mubarak is worried about, it's his personal
billions. He wants them safely away from where a future Egyptian government
can get at them.

~~~
gaius
That's what I am saying; he knows Abdullah has his back financially. He can
just stash his money in a Saudi bank.

~~~
stcredzero
If I were Abdullah, I might ask Mubarak to hold on and have a orderly transfer
of power. I think a lot of middle eastern regimes are afraid of a domino
effect.

------
joelmichael
Until September. And who would you have him give power to? There is no
democratically selected replacement. Which is why he is waiting for an
election, in which he will not be a contender, to give power. People will have
time to vet and debate the candidates. You'd rather there be a power struggle
amongst radicals leading an angry mob, to see who replaces Mubarak as
dictator? I think Mubarak is doing the sensible thing, and at least deserves
the benefit of the doubt.

~~~
roc
> _"And who would you have him give power to?"_

I'm sure the Vice President, while quite possibly a stooge, is perfectly
capable of running things until September. As are at least a dozen cabinet- or
governor-level officials.

That Mubarak would have picked the interim leader doesn't delegitimize the
process any more than his staying in place. It would instead underscore his
promise and intent to not seek re-election, to not manipulate the process and
to seek a peaceful transition of power.

And the idea that an interim leader would instead retain power for themselves
is farcical. The Egyptian people have expressed their will and surely they
could do it again. Unless the entire military apparatus wheeled around on the
people, there is simply no option whereby an interim governor could crown
themselves dictator.

~~~
mousa
I think the VP and the parliament chair have exhausted any trust too as
they've been trying to demonize the protesters for a week. Military guy +
committee of OK ministers and opposition is probably going to happen

------
cubtastic71
Scared to see what happens by the end of the weekend. You could hear the
crowds tone change as the man spoke trying to cling on to his power.

------
JoachimSchipper
... ouch. This is going to be bloody.

~~~
Alex3917
That was probably the point of the CIA starting this rumor in the first place.

~~~
eli
Why would the CIA want it to get bloody?

~~~
Alex3917
They don't want blood per se, but rather they want to end the geopolitical
uncertainty. And the way they do this is by setting up the game theory so that
it's in everyone's rational interest for the situation to resolve itself in a
way that benefits the US and minimizes global risk. And if this means a few
hundred protestors getting killed, that's what's going to happen.

It's not really different than any other coup or revolution.

------
jim_h
I wonder what the armed forces in Egypt are going to do. Will there be a coup?

------
BigZaphod
Oh.... he'll be leaving, I think. Perhaps not in one piece, though. :/

~~~
bryanh
Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Any violence on either side means many,
many people will be killed in the struggle.

------
adolph
I think the word "voluntarily" is missing from the title.

------
ldayley
I don't feel as though I know enough about Egypt and the political sentiment
there to comment directly, but I sense that this is a very historical moment
in time for the entire Middle East.

------
sammville
I actually thought he had come to his right senses!

------
kasted
m night twist

------
elvirs
Son of a bitch

