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May 19th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda The poll results come ahead of next week’s presidential elections which will be the first in the post-revolution nation.
Aboul Fotouh along with former Arab League chief, Amr Moussa, leader of the Dignity Party, Hamdeen Sabbahi, and chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, Mohammed Mursi, are viewed as frontrunners in the landmark election.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Mostafa Ragab, founder of the Egyptian UK Association, to hear his opinion on this issue.
The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: I’d like to have your reflections on the expats which has come in with results showing Fotouh to be in the lead, Sabbahi coming in second and we have Mohammed Mursi in third and Amr Moussa in fourth place.
Ragab: In fact I like to say that we are so pleased to participate in this presidential election and we hope that we can do better next time. I think the results might be a bit deceiving or misleading because the number of Egyptians abroad will not put that much effect on the election.
The people in Egypt will decide this issue. We look at the numbers all over the world of the people who voted, it will not make any effect on the election in Egypt.
I think also the decision of allowing the results to be known now, it will put some negative effect on some people and maybe some people will make use of it because announcing the results a week before the election take place in Egypt is not very healthy.
That will be okay if it’s all done at the same day but doing a week different in the time it will not help people in Egypt.
The election itself went very well in London here. The embassy has invited members of the Egyptian community to be there as observer and I was one of them. It went very well and it was very clear and transparent. Everything went very well. We spent the whole night looking at people opening the envelopes and dividing the papers into different boxes.
So I can say that it went clean election in London at least, but we have to wait for the people in Egypt to show us their feeling. But looking at the result of the election in London I think as anticipated Aboul Fotouh has took the lead and maybe that would put an effect on the Egyptian people and Aboul Fotouh will still be leading in Egypt.
Press TV: Looking at Amr Moussa and Mohammed Mursi there in terms of the army’s role in politics it seems like the army still is going to be involved based on those two platforms?
Ragab: It is a very sensitive and very difficult issue and early yet to talk about. We know the role of the army before the revolution and this role has to be changed, the whole structure of the Egyptian politics has to be changed. It cannot continue or remain as it was. But what helped in a situation before the revolution that the president was also the head of the army but in future that is not going to be the case.
So we hope that we can see a defense minister inside the ministry playing the role that should be played by the army.
This is as I said before a very sensitive area and hopefully the elected president and the elected government will deal with it wisely because that can cause a lot of problems in Egypt.
Press TV: In terms of police and public safety, safety is a big issue. I am looking at Hamdeen Sabbahi restructuring the security apparatus, Mohammed Mursi also has said that. Do you think that these two are able to in terms of their platform do and overtake such a huge task against remnants of the old regime, the police has been alleged to still have some of the remnants there?
Ragab: Security is a big issue for people in Egypt and that is going to cause stability and after that of course we can look at the investment in tourism industry.
So security is a very, very important issue and whoever is elected a lot of people can make a lot of promises now just for the votes, but whoever is elected will have to implement this responsibility and achieve the security for the Egyptian people and for the country as a whole.
And of course what I am really sad with at the moment that I believe that SCAF should have provided the security and is able to provide the security but maybe for the lack of experience that they just faced with, that was not provided.
But after the election whoever is elected… must make sure that he will employ the minister that will be able to enforce the security into the streets of Egypt. It is very necessary to achieve that.
Press TV: Well looking at Aboul Fotouh in terms of government reform and corruption he has said that he wants to appoint young people to 50 percent of top government positions into ensure independence of judiciary. Does that surprise you, appointing young people to 50 percent of half of government positions?
Ragab: I would really welcome that and I will encourage that because it is about time that Egypt sees young people in positions and when I heard the youth of the revolution speaking during the revolution I was very impressed with the way of thinking and the knowledge and those people should be given the chance. They should come to power in Egypt and they should be really giving roles to play.
The future of Egypt depends on those young people. Other people can take back seats and be advisors and we must make use of them not just kick them out but we can make good use of them but it is very important to bring young people.
As I said before I hope that everyone can be holding to what count, with what he promised before the election because a lot of things will be said for the sake of votes and we must hold in for that.
Press TV: Since we are on government reform and corruption, Mursi seems to have the strongest of platforms very elaborate, very detailed in which he also said inject new blood into state machinery by reducing aid requirements. Out of the four candidates who do you think on this issue–government reform and corruption– is the strongest?
Ragab: It is all promises. The aid will continue and America will make sure of that and Egypt will still welcome that for some time. But let’s not forget that a culture has been built in Egypt of corruption, a culture of corruption and it is going to take a long, long time to change this culture.
It has become more or less the majority of people are corrupted and corruption is still going in Egypt after the revolution. We see a lot of money being smuggled out of Egypt every day and this is in my opinion an organized crime. It is not just someone who takes a suitcase full of money and leave Egypt. It must be an organized crime. a lot of people involved.
So corruption is still happening. So to change this culture of corruption with a lot of people involved in it is going to take a hell of a long time and a lot of work.
This is one of the main concerns for me is how and how long it will take to change this culture of corruption that has been established in Egypt.
AHK/HGH
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