MEDIA ALERT: Egyptians vote in presidential election

May 23rd, 2012

CAIRO, EGYPT – Egyptians vote in the first free presidential election since former President Hosni Mubarak’s ousting last spring. First round voting began today at 8am local time (2am EST) and will run through Thursday. Thirteen candidates are on the ballot. (Sources: AP / The Telegraph)

Analysts available for comment:

	Oliver McTernan is the director and co-founder of Forward Thinking, a UK-based organization that works to prevent and resolve conflict at a national and global level and to promote understanding between cultures. CONTACT: oliver.mcternan@theglobalexperts.org Location: West Europe Language: English
	Abdallah Schleifer, Ph.D. is a veteran journalist who has covered the Middle East for American and Arab media for more than thirty years. He is Professor Emeritus at the American University in Cairo. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has praised Professor Schleifer as “a great bridge-builder between cultures”, saying “we Middle East correspondents are something of a fraternity and Abdallah has always been a credit to our little club. He is intensely independent, honest, and a wonderful explainer about both Islam and the Arab world.” CONTACT: abdallah.schleifer@theglobalexperts.org Location: Middle East Language: English
	Hani Shukrallah is the founding editor of Ahram Online, the Cairo-based English-language news portal, and the executive director of the Heikal Foundation for Arab Journalism. He has written and published widely on politics and current events for numerous publications, including Al-Ahram Weekly, the Guardian, and Al-Hayat. CONTACT: hanishukrallah@gmail.com Location: Middle East Language: English; Arabic
	Abdeslam Maghraoui is Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University and a core faculty member at the Duke Islamic Studies Center. Professor Maghraoui focuses his research on religion, political reform and political violence in the Middle East and North Africa. Having carried out fieldwork frequently in both regions, he has been called on multiple occasions to provide testimony to various US government agencies regarding his areas of study, and has been featured on American and international TV and radio programs. CONTACT: abdeslam.maghraoui@theglobalexperts.org Location: North America Language: Arabic, English, French
	Anne Applebaum is a columnist for The Washington Post and Slate. Formerly a member of The Washington Post editorial board, she has also worked as the Foreign and Deputy Editor of The Spectator magazine in London, as the Political Editor of The Evening Standard, and as a columnist at several British newspapers, including The Daily Telegraph. CONTACT: anne.applebaum@theglobalexperts.org Location: East Europe Language: English; Russian
	Alex Vatanka is the U.S. based IHS Jane’s Middle East Senior Analyst. Vatanka specializes on the geopolitics of the Middle East. He is a specialist on Iran, the GCC states, Middle East regional affairs, and U.S. policy in the Middle East. CONTACT: alex.vatanka@theglobalexperts.org Location: North America Language: English
	Francois Burgat, Ph.D. is a Senior Research Fellow (Directeur de recherches) at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France, and is posted at IREMAM (Institut de Recherches et d’Etudes sur le Monde Arabe et Musulman) in Aix-en-Provence. He is a renowned political scientist and Arabist. CONTACT: francois.burgat@theglobalexperts.org Location: West Europe Languages: Arabic; English; French