The Middle East Institute is pleased to host Nathan Brown, Khaled Elgindy, and Hafez Al Mirazi for a conversation about recent political developments in Egypt. As the first ever Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate prepares to take office, a larger standoff looms between the SCAF and the Brotherhood over the future of the recently dissolved Parliament and the question of the constitution. Brown, Elgindy and Al Mirazi will examine these and other challenges facing Egypt on its rocky transition toward democracy.
Introduction to Higher Education and the Middle East: Empowering Under-served and Vulnerable Populations
Originally posted October 2010
This second edition of the MEI Viewpoints series on Higher Education and the Middle East focuses on Empowering Under-served and Vulnerable Populations.
The cacophony of bullhorns, fireworks and frenzied cross-country barnstorming in trucks, busses and three-wheeled “tuk-tuks” emblazoned with candidates’ posters has come to an end, and a historic moment has arrived: tens of millions of Egyptians are heading to the polls today in the first democratic presidential election in the country’s history, an election borne out of the 2011 revolution that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak and injected Egyptians with a novel feeling of excitement for participatory democracy.
Dr. Makram-Ebeid, along with ten other liberal and leftists members, recently resigned from Egypt's Constituent Assembly in protest over its Islamist majority, leaving only five women and five Christians remaining in the assembly. With the transition process in turmoil, a diverse coalition of Egyptian generals, liberals, bureaucrats, and judges are turning to the courts to attempt to diversify the composition of the Constituent Assembly, which is currently almost entirely dominated by Islamists – both Salafists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
