Why Reformers Will Win in Egypt

There are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic as Egyptians go to the polls today, for the second day of their first post-Mubarak election. “Months have gone by without any meaningful change in how the country is governed. The military is not listening,” Google employee-turned-revolutionary Wael Ghonim writes in today’s New York Times. But Ghonim remains optimistic. “Revolution is a process. Its failure and success cannot be measured after only a few months.”

Ghonim thinks momentum is on change’s side for a few reasons:

• A big chunk of Egyptian society “has overcome its fear to speak out.”
• The Internet has broken the state’s power to control the media.
• Egyptians have started to organize for change, forming labor and agricultural unions.
• Egypt is young, with half of its people under the age of 25. They're tech-savvy, fearless, and "have the frame of mind required for the next stage of Egypt’s revolution.”

Full column here. (More Wael Ghonim stories.)