The candidates are here

and the election isn't a farce, at all: Only 11 candidates will be able to compete for the top post in Egypt’s first contested presidential elections against President Hosni Mubarak, officials at the Higher Presidential Election Committee said yesterday. Thr original list was something like 30 candidates, of which the election committe, created by Mybarak and is in no way biased, trimmed down to 11 , 8 of them are virtual unknowns. Talaat El Sadat was one of the candidates who got trimmed. Wouldn't want someone with the name recognition of Sadat to run in an election between Mubarak and 10 virtual unknowns now do we? And in an indication to just how "fair" Mubarak intends to play politics while having his kind of powers, a 19 year old El-Ghad activist got shot by the police in the foot today for putting up El-Ghad posters. Yep, you read it right: for putting up posters, this 19 year old got shot. God Bless this mess!