This House believes Egypt needs a second revolution

At the New Arab Debates in Cairo, Egyptians were equally divided on whether their country needed a second revolution, 24 hours after an Islamist candidate was declared the winner in the country’s first free presidential election.

An audience of young professionals, students, activists and academics voted 50.9 percent for the motion: ‘This House believes Egypt needs a second revolution’. The pre-debate vote showed 55.1 percent in support of the motion.

Hani Shukrallah, Editor of Al Ahram online, spoke for the motion and Dr. Abdel Monem Said Aly, leading columnist at Al Ahram newspaper and former chairman of the board of Egypt’s largest state-run media empire, spoke against the motion.

Both speakers agreed that Egyptians wanted a democracy – not a “theocracy” or a “police state” – but they differed on how to make it happen.

Mr. Shukrallah said Egypt needed another revolution to achieve the unfinished goals of the first one that had toppled Hosni Mubarak but had failed to end the “police state” and the arrest and torture of state opponents.

Dr. Said said the first revolution had not come to an end. “We are dealing with all these ills because the revolution is not over yet…we need to institutionalise the revolution to stop the cruelty of the police forces and those who want to move the country toward a religious state”.