Hopeful candidates dropped out of Egyptian presidential race

The Long Awaited Man of Egypt!

It seems like a multi-act play, with a stage full of different audio-video effects, as actors come and go, players appear and vanish, personalities rise and fall, and no one yet to know when is the most interested climax, as many have already passed, and might be even forgotten. This is Egypt getting ready for what could be the first “real” presidential elections in its modern and ancient times, if that could be practiced by the book!

Today, May 11, 2012, is marking the completion of 18 months after the fall of Mubarak regime that lasted for three decades. The Egyptians witnessed 30 years filed with all types of clear political corruption, severe social injustice, and brutal police actions, but those who have been waiting such a long time are not even ready to wait for the elections to start, a few days away.

As most of Egyptians, and this including me, have become not certain of real intentions of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, whose 19 members are the rulers once appointed by Mubarak himself, and who continued to follow and apply the same principles of the dictator when it comes to deal with the people in Egypt, especially the revolutionary youth individuals.

One of those theatrical figures who was abandoned and deprived from going for the presidency contest is Hazem Salah Abu-Ismail. A lawyer, whose father was a radical Islamic opponent, seemed to have a good chance for winning, as his followers used to think, inheriting the support of all Salafi groups (radical Islamists). Cairo and other Egyptian cities’ street walls, shops, taxi doors, and buildings were all covered with millions of his posters, in such a campaign that was sure financed with the Gulf states, specially Saudi Arabia that was said to pay $140 m. for promoting Abu-Ismail. Discovering that his mother obtained the US citizenship passport kicked him away as he is dropped by the condition that every presidential candidate must be Egyptian with Egyptian parents and children. The operation of dropping Abu-Ismail was not in favor of “Hazemoon”, or his followers who obtained that nickname which was deprived from his first name; Hazem, means tough!

Two other players were departed because of the judicial order that prevents any detained from going for presidency before the end of 5 years period from the date of obtaining legal clearance and freedom. This was applied to the political opponent Ayman Noor, and the Muslim Brother businessman Khayrat Al-Shater. Both were arrested and imprisoned for political cases during Mubarak regime.

Among the 10 departed figures there was the Omar Suleiman, the key Spy of Mubarak who was appointed as a vice president during the early days of January 25th  Revolution. Suleiman himself was another face for Mubarak to deal with Israelis as friends, supplying them with cheap gas, cutting aids to Palestinians in Gaza, and even torturing the detained sent by CIA to get confessions from them in the prisons of Egypt. And the reason for putting him aside was that he could not collect the amount of signatures needed from one single governorate, among more than 43000 signatures submitted by his supporters to the elections committee. 

The rare character of the climax of all those events was the return of Ahmed Shafik, once the Prime Minister appointed by Mubarak during the revolution, as well.  He succeeded to stop the judicial order against him. The law of depriving those who participated in the dictator’s regime and political party was too late to prevent Shafik from joining the race.

So beside Shafik, there is Amro Musa, both nicknamed as “Folool”, an expression to describe the persons who followed the past regime. Amro Musa was a foreign minister, but this was more 10 years ago, when he was sent to be the Secretary General of the Arab League. We could consider both of them as a replica of the falling dictator, but with a civil touch, and both are getting support from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

Among the other 11 candidates only three are getting reasonable chances to complete the race against those two politicians mentioned above. The first is Dr. Abdul-Monem Aboul-Fotouh, described by most liberal voices as the masked man.

He has been a member of the Muslim Brothers for the whole of his life. As a doctor, he even participated in many Islamic medical campaigns in Afghanistan and Palestine. But shortly before the elections he decided to get rid of the Muslim Brothers membership, to act individually, especially after the many failures performed by the group member after joining the Egyptian Parliament.

But this was just a fake, as he is still considered the Islamic face of the movement, and even if he looks moderate, he could not neglect the Muslim Brothers attitudes or the Salafist (radical Islamists) support for him.

But the clear face of Muslim Brothers in the race is Dr. Mohammed Moursi. He is getting the whole kind of satire in the press and social networks since the announcement of him to go for the presidential elections by Muslim Brothers instead of their previous candidate the businessman Khayrat Al-Shater. Now, Dr. Morsi is called Mr. “Istebn” which means the replacement tire, as he was not their first choice for such mission.

Concluding with Hamdin Sabahi, we come to “A Man like Us”, as the slogan of his campaign says. It is a miracle for Sabahi to go with no financial support of any kind against those competitors whom are supported by all types of power, authority and money. He is considered one of the youthful faces (compared with Amro Musa: 74, Ahmed Shafik: 69, Abdul-Monem Aboul-Fotouh: 59, Hamdin Sabahi: 57, Khaled Ali: 39) and this could be one aspect called for by the revolutionists.

He is also a journalist, it makes him – for me at least – a man like us, and he promises not to live in the presidential palace after winning, preferring to stay in his home in the City of Journalists at the skirt of Cairo.

Hamdin considers himself an advocate of poor people, and, at the same time, Arab national candidates who believes in the rights of Palestinians to get their homes, lands and rights back. Many see him as a political son of Gamal Abdul-Nasser, the famous face of the Arab identity. Most of liberal forces, of writers, and cultural figures support him.

With the first night show of voting begins abroad, the race is going fast to reach one of its many climaxes. The problem is not becoming who is going to win; rather – as in theatre – would the other actors respect and accept the end of the play?