Mr. Ghitani had plenty of praise for the youth, and their discipline and organization that allowed them to confront the state security and prevail, even though the disappearance of all security and police forces from the street was still a mystery to him, and probably a ploy to instill chaos especially when coupled with the release of the prisoners and the letting loose of state-sponsored thugs on the streets.
He next proceeded to compare this revolution to that of 1919, which witnessed a similar mobilization of nearly the entire population of Egypt, even though in that revolution there was a clear head, a revered symbol in Saad Zaghlool, while this one had no head or leader.
The former president, Hosni Mubarak, received his fair share of criticism, although Mr. al-Ghitani told an anecdote in which he saw Mubarak in a book fair during the early days of his presidency, and noticed they wearing the same vest, which cost no more than 50 Egyptian pounds (about 10 dollars) at the time. When he asked the president about it, he said that it covers him as well as the most expensive suit. “Compare that to these last few years, in which he had hundreds of suits flown in at a time from London and Paris!”
As the author moved to describe the last days of Mubarak’s reign, he stressed that this revolution was still on-going and not over. On the other hand, he had high praise for the army and said that when he heard that the high council of the armed forces was in a state of “permanent convention”, he knew it was game over.
“By the end, when the protesters decided to move to the presidential palace, I feared a massacre, but I later figured out that at that time, the army gave Mubarak one of two choices: Either you resign, or we arrest you on the spot.”
During the question and answer session, Mr. al-Ghitani was asked who he prefers as a new president. To the cheers of many, he indirectly pointed at Amr Moussa as being a “75 year old employee of Mubarak” who will be a disaster for Egypt. He also took a swipe at el-Baradei (but got his age wrong) when he said “someone who is nearly 80 and hadn’t lived in Egypt for a long time shouldn’t be president.” “Are we so lacking in Egypt that we only have these two as choices for a president?” He said he wants to see a president emerge from the youth who led the revolution. “Remember, Nasser was 34 on the eve of the 1952 revolution.”
On answering the question of whether he prefers parliamentary or presidential elections first, he said he’d prefer a transitional council mixed between military and civilians, to oversee things for 1-2 years until the leaders of the youth movement emerge and are ready to take over. “Let’s not overcook things and elect a president within a few months lest we end up with another dictator.”
With regard to the second article of the constitution, which stipulates that Islam is the religion of the state, he said he is against it as he advocates a fully civil state. He also said that the Muslim Brotherhood should be treated just as any other political party to see what their true representation is within the population. “However, if we hold the elections right here and now with no other true political party having emerged yet, the elections will be skewed in their favor.”
