Nur uses trial to punt campaign
2005-06-27 17:18
Cairo - Ayman Nur, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's only serious election rival, vowed to use what he brands his trumped-up trial to indict the regime and win more support ahead of September's presidential poll.
The 40-year-old lawyer, whose six weeks in jail earlier this year turned him into the country's most-visible opposition figure, is due to go on trial on Tuesday accused of forging documents for the creation of his Ghad (Tomorrow) party.
"The trial is aimed at harming my credibility and tarnishing my image.
But even the monkeys in the zoo know it is not a valid case and has been fabricated by the authorities," he said.
"During my trial, they will accuse me of having forged papers for the creation of my party and I will respond to these false allegations by accusing the regime of having rigged elections," he said.
Making predictions
From their extravagantly furnished rooftop apartment in Cairo's upmarket Zamalek neighbourhood, Nur and his wife Gamila Ismail — both of them former journalists — have already mapped out the scenario of the trial.
They predicted the Egyptian court would drag out the hearings to cripple Nur's campaign. but impose a jail sentence only after the September election.
That would bar him from running for re-election in his Cairo stronghold in November parliamentary polls, they said, suggesting he would then be released a few months later on appeal.
Nur and many observers predict new presidential elections will be organised long before the end of the fifth six-year term the 77-year-old Mubarak is widely expected to clinch in September.
A rule requiring that candidates should head parties formed more than five years ago was meant to allow for true pluralist elections in 2011, but anticipated elections would still bar Nur, whose party was approved only last year.
Lashing out against the judiciary
"This strategy weakens the campaign against me. The simple Egyptians know the judiciary in this country is not always just and the intellectuals have clearly seen the manipulation.
"President Mubarak is surrounded by rival organs with different objectives," he said.
Critics charge Nur is an ambivalent character himself, a product of the regime who opportunistically fashioned himself into an opposition leader.
Nur has become the face of an emboldened opposition and a leading anti-Mubarak voice.
"The regime has expired. Mubarak has nothing to offer after 24 years. He stole the soul of the Egyptian people," he said.
Nur, whose Ghad party counts only seven legislators in the 454-seat parliament, proposes to scrap the 24-year-old emergency law and draw a new constitution defining the framework of a parliamentary republic.
Nur's defence team consists of about 10 prominent lawyers and the wealthy couple has deployed an impressive media arsenal for the trial, with a dedicated press centre and circulation of the Ghad weekly boosted to 250 000.