A Secret Report on a Consensus Candidate

 

A Secret Report on a Consensus Candidate

 

 

 

by Alaa El Aswany

 

Top Secret ( to be opened only by the agency director)

 

 

 

Dear General …..,

 

Greetings.

Further to the decisions taken at the meeting we held with the consensus presidential candidate, attended by your excellency and my senior colleagues in the agency, at which you confirmed that Mr …. is the candidate we will support in the presidential elections, and further to your excellency's orders, I hereby submit a number of suggestions in this regard that I hope will obtain your approval:

 

First, before we start supporting our consensus candidate, we must establish that he is completely loyal to us and that we will be able to maintain full control of him now and in the future. This candidate, whom we will now make president of Egypt, will carry out everything we ask of him, especially in key matters that affect the destiny of the country. We must not allow this incoming president to turn against us and capitulate to the provocateurs and saboteurs. Before the election campaign starts I suggest we secure complete control over the candidate by both political and personal means. Politically, we must think of a legal way by which to annul the presidential elections, not for public disclosure at this stage but for use if ever we want to get rid of him. On the personal front, your excellency will find in the annex to this report a detailed CV of the candidate and a complete list of his relationships with women, his habits and the places he frequents. We have CDs, videos and photographs of his private life that could create scandals and ruin his reputation at any time. I await your excellency's orders in this matter.

 

Second, in order to achieve the desired result in the elections we must continue to put pressure on ordinary people in their everyday lives. We will continue to carry out the usual plans: prices will continue to rise and the shortages of basic foodstuffs will grow worse. The shortages of petrol, cooking gas and subsidized bread will continue and at the same time we will send out groups of former convicts to attack people waiting in lines. Chaos must be spread everywhere. Egyptians must understand that what they called a revolution was in fact a disaster that brought them anarchy (just as His Excellency President Mubarak said in his last speech). We have to use our agents to escalate demonstrations by special-interest groups and strikes by staff in all state establishments. We must push our agents to mobilize demonstrators to block highways and stop railway traffic. Last week we sent out groups of thugs to get on West Delta Company buses, pick arguments with the drivers and then beat them up. The attacks went on several days in succession until the drivers declared a strike and closed down all the company's bus services. The breakdown in law and order must accelerate and assume more widespread and serious forms (here I would like to commend the attack on the two members of that despicable parliamentary committee that recommended moving President Mubarak to prison hospital). The officers will coordinate with businessmen on finance and the activities of thugs will intensify in the near future. Armed robberies and night-time shootings in the street must continue. As for raids on banks, these should take place in broad daylight to show people how insecure the country is. The bank raids serve two important purposes: they frighten people and make them worry about their savings, leading them to withdraw their funds and adding to the economic crisis. At the same time the armed thugs must continue to carry out carjackings on highways such as the the Cairo ring road and the Wadi Natroun road. Former convicts must be sent to attack nurseries and girls' schools, to spread panic among parents. The thugs must continue their daily attacks on hospitals, and on doctors and nurses. I suggest the attacks be carefully calibrated  to create panic but as far as possible without anyone being killed (because a high death toll could have a counter-effect and push people to rebel). At the same time the media should give exaggerated coverage to these crises, linking them to the events of January 25. They should emphasize that anarchy prevails and that Egypt is on the verge of bankruptcy, so that people turn against the events of January and realise that they have been the cause of all these misfortunes. Keeping up the pressure through shortages and lawlessness will put people in the psychological state required. The aim here is to ensure that people will accept anything in order to restore order and normality and will vote for the candidate we support, and at the same time will ignore any irregularities in the electoral process because they want stability at any price.      

 

Thirdly, in the state media we have reestablished control over those who cooperate with us and have recruited new people (journalists, broadcasters and producers). At the satellite channels we have put pressure on the businessmen who own them and threatened to investigate their financial abuses. This  has encouraged them to get ride of provocative journalists, except for one station that has not complied. As a first step we sent a group of thugs to attack that station until we reach a final solution and are able to close it down. A large media campaign has been arranged to start within days to portray the presidential elections to public opinion as a historic national achievement that will impress the world with Egyptian democracy. In consequence anyone who casts doubt on the fairness of the elections will look like a traitor or like someone paid to spoil the national celebration of democracy.

 

Fourth, the people now inciting acts of sabotage are the same people who led the events of January 2011. They are known by name and they belong to various political factions – liberals, leftists, Islamists, revolutionary socialists and prominent independents (their names are in the annexes to this report). These provocateurs must be subjected to a comprehensive campaign in all media and websites until it is firmly embedded in people's minds that they are working for and paid by foreign interests. At the same time their energies must be sapped through repeated complaints filed to the public prosecutor by honest citizens, accusing them of sabotage, causing disturbances, disturbing social peace, inciting hatred of the system of government and receiving finance from foreign institutions. The investigations must last a long time with intense media coverage so that the idea that all the provocateurs are traitors financed from abroad becomes well established in people's minds. Last week a video was created showing one of the women activists drinking beer, and it has been distributed on the internet. In another operation some thugs were sent to attack one of the leading provocateurs as he was making a  public speech in Embaba. The video was then distributed as proof that people dismiss the man as an agent and a hireling.

 

Fifth, as your excellency knows, the Islamic movement is not one block, but a group of different tendencies, and so it is impossible to control (please find a list of Islamist parties and groups attached). Among the Islamists there are few who cooperate with us but the vast majority are sympathetic to what they call a revolution and have close links to saboteurs from other non-Islamist groups. Over the past year the young Islamists have disobeyed the instructions of their elders and have taken part in mass rallies with the saboteurs. I was delighted to hear your excellency announce that the best-known Islamist group has agreed to support our candidate. They are very organized and their members are sworn to obedience to their leader. They also have long experience and careful organization and have effective methods of winning elections, such as giving way cooking oil, sugar and meat to the poor, and influencing voters in and around polling stations. In every constituency they also have followers we can appoint as supervisors in polling stations, as we did in the parliamentary elections. Through our alliance with this group we can guarantee a large block of voters for our candidate.

 

Sixth, some obscure candidates whom no one has ever heard of before must be brought in, in order to achieve two objectives: to give the impression that the elections are a real competition and not a formality, and because the more obscure presidential candidates there are, the more people will stick to our candidate. In the midst of anarchy and successive crises, people will not choose someone unknown as president, but will feel at ease with our candidate, who has held senior positions for many years.

 

Seventh, our candidate must adopt a strongly religious discourse to strengthen his image as a committed Muslim (as you know, he is in fact not at all pious). Our candidate must announce that he will apply sharia law as soon as he takes office. He must call for an immediate ban on alcohol and on women wearing bikinis. This discourse will help because it will attract simple voters, especially in rural and working-class areas. We have good contacts with a large number of Friday preachers and we will give them clear instructions to support our candidate. In their Friday sermons they must say that our candidate is a statesman and the only one capable of applying sharia and saving Egypt from the effects of secularism, licentiousness and atheism. The election propaganda will be based on a number of questions to be posed to people: are you Muslim? Do you want Islam to triumph over infidel secularism? Then you must vote for the consensus candidate. At this stage negative images of the rival candidates must be created. They must be portrayed as agents of the church, financed by the United States with the aim of de-Islamifying Egypt, turning it into a secular state and banning minarets, as in Switzerland. Simple people must think that the rival candidates want to spread degeneracy and permit gay marriage. The rival Islamist candidates must be portrayed as terrorists or extremists incapable of handling the responsibility of the presidency. If they are popular they must be soundly beaten up (I would like to record here that the operation in which Dr Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh was beaten up was a model of careful planning and successful implementation).

 

Eighth, The traditional methods for altering election results can be used if necessary. In the annex there is a list of ways of altering results (at the counting stage and when the votes are added up, the rotating card method, the multiple national D number method and so on). If these methods are exposed the elections will not be annulled because the decisions of the supreme electoral commission that will monitor the elections are final and incontestable. They cannot be appealed against or protested.

 

Sir, these are my proposals for supporting the consensus candidate. Awaiting your instructions,

 

I remain, sir etc.

 

Lieutenant Colonel ……                     

 

 

    Democracy is the solution.                                    

 

    

 

 

email address: dralaa57@yahoo.com