Let us hope that Mubarak is more serious about electoral reform. As a measure of sincerity, he needs to order the immediate release of Ayman Nour and take steps to terminate the 24-year-long state of emergency, which effectively prevents political campaigning from taking place.
Mubarak should also endorse a limit of no more than two successive five-year terms for any president. Equally necessary are confidence-building measures, including open and equal access to the media, which are now state-controlled.
I have announced that I intend to contest this upcoming presidential election as a way of opening debate on these essential reforms. But I would gladly go back to my life as a private citizen once guaranteed a free and open election this fall.
If seriously implemented, these steps will transform Mubarak's legacy. Along with events in Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine, it may well usher in an Arab spring of freedom, one long overdue.
Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian pro-democracy and peace activist, is a professor at the American University in Cairo and heads the Ibn Khaldun Center. He is currently writing his prison memoirs.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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