What’s in a name? Quite a lot, really. Especially when you’re on a diplomatic sojourn to a friendly country and you confuse a new democratically elected leader with a recently ousted dictator.
This was the awkward position Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas found himself in on Wednesday when he mixed up the names of current Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi with imprisoned former ruler Hosni Mubarak.
At the Islamic summit in Cairo on Wednesday, Abbas thanked Egypt and “President Mohammed Hosni” for supporting the Palestinian cause, stopping quickly to correct the faux pas.
Morsi makes a big show of being Egypt’s first freely elected leader following three decades of Hosni Mubarak’s rule.
Critics of Morsi have labeled him “Morsi Mubarak.” Since taking office in June, Morsi has come under fire for what opponents say is a betrayal of the January 2011 revolution that overthrew his predecessor.
Morsi has passed a new constitution, which gives Islam a central role in law, and passed other laws which liberals and secularists say gives the president too much power and relinquishes the rights they fought for in Tahrir Square.
