#EgyElections: A Rundown of the Contenders

Opening our discussion at 3boor al-7odud is the current top story in the Middle East, Egypt's upcoming first round of presidential elections. Set to occur May 23 and 24, the elections pit 13 candidates against each other. The top two will move on to a run-off election, set for June 16 and 17, provided no candidate receives 50 percent plus one of the vote. This is all but a certainty, given the tremendous strength of a number of the candidates.

It should first be noted that Egypt's elections are first and foremost about Egyptian public opinion. While certainly the United States holds a strong interest in the identity and politics of the winner, if there's one thing America should have learned from our disastrous boots-on-the-ground interventionist era, it's that picking and choosing winners in other countries is rarely successful and often builds intense antipathy toward the United States. In a region where already much of the public holds a low opinion of the United States, we certainly don't need any further triggers.

Understanding who's likely to win the elections in May is a tricky business. Public opinion polling is notoriously spotty in Egypt, as are newspaper surveys. The polling houses with the best track records sometimes come from out-of-country, as in the case of the Brookings Institution and the Pew Center. Neither of these institutions, to my knowledge, has done any substantive polling of candidate preference. (Update: Brookings conducted a poll here ending the day of the first presidential debate. Results: Aboul Fotouh 32 percent; Moussa 28 percent; Shafiq 14 percent; Morsi eight percent; Sabahi eight percent). I find it much more instructive to listen to anecdotal accounts given in newspapers and through conversations with Egyptian friends, compare them with the best public opinion survey done to date — the parliamentary election results — and draw conclusions from there.

Here's a rundown of the contenders in Wednesday and Thursday's elections. A good summary of candidate platforms done by the Cairo Review of Global Affairs is available here. First, let's sweep a few candidates out of the way.

• Khaled Ali, lawyer, human rights and labor activist: Though Ali is popular with the youth and the left, particularly after calling for trial of members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), neither of these groups are so strongly in his column or so numerous as to ensure a top-two selection. This being said, unlike other leftist candidates, his platform is less socialist and extremely balanced toward civil rights, promising vice presidencies for at least one woman and one Coptic Christian.
• Abdullah El-Ashal, professor of international law: El-Ashal has no natural base among the electorate. He is notable for openly calling for review of the 1979 Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, and has a distinguished career as a diplomat. The smaller Salafist (ultraconservative Muslim) party, Al-Asala, endorsed him. Al-Asala holds three seats in the Egyptian People's Assembly.
• Mohammed Selim El-Awwa, Islamist thinker, member of Al-Wasat: While it is tempting to put El-Awwa, as a moderate Islamist, among the "contenders," the fact remains that his party is much smaller than the two major Islamist parties, Freedom and Justice (the Muslim Brotherhood) and Hizb al-Nour (the Salafists). El-Awwa is an interesting candidate for Christians in Egypt, as he is a co-founder of the Arab Muslim-Christian Dialogue Group, but recently made inflammatory remarks about Copts stockpiling arms in churches and monasteries. Al-Wasat controls 10 seats in the Egyptian People's Assembly.
• Hisham El-Bastawisi, judge: Though supported by the April 6 movement, a youth activist group seeking to continue the revolutionary spirit of January 25, El-Bastawisi has no natural large constituency. He is supported by the Tagammu Party, which holds four seats in the Egyptian People's Assembly.
• Mohammed Fawzi Eissa, lawyer, former police officer: Police officers, once a respected, if not feared, class, are now despised by the Egyptian populace for their role in repressing the revolution. Egyptians yearn for a police force operating under the rule of law and for the people, not a dictator. Perhaps Eissa is that policeman, but his candidacy suffers from a lack of name recognition and no natural base. He is supported by the Al-Geel Al-Democrati Party, which holds no seats in the Egyptian People's Assembly as far as I can tell, but is part of the Muslim Brotherhood's Democratic Alliance.
• Mahmoud Hossam El-Din Galal, former policeman: Galal is another policeman. He worked with the United Nations Middle East Human Rights Department in the late 1990s and has focused his platform on reforming state security. Galal is an independent, and just like in the United States, unless you have superior name recognition, a lot of money and a natural base (we'll get to that soon), winning as an independent is impossible.
• Abul-Ezz El-Hariri, longtime social justice and opposition activist: El-Hariri also has little to no base of support. He shares concerns with many of the leftists in the race, and operates a political platform based primarily on redistribution of wealth. He is the candidate of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, which holds seven seats in the Egyptian People's Assembly.
• Hossam Khairallah, former assistant chairman in Egyptian intelligence: The title says it all for Khairallah; someone who was this closely tied with the Mubarak regime's worst elements (intelligence and police forces) will never be elected president of Egypt post-revolution. He is the candidate of Al-Salam Al-Democrati Party, an offshoot of Mubarak's National Democratic Party, which holds one seat in the Egyptian People's Assembly.

For those of you keeping score at home, I have eliminated from "top-two" consideration eight of the 13 candidates for president. Of the previous eight, the only one who might — and this is a very distant "might" — pose a strong showing (in the top four) is El-Awwa, and then only if the Islamist candidates wholly collapse, something which is unlikely.

The next two candidates are perceived longshots to reach the top-two run-off election in June. However, some polling (spotty, of course) has put them in contention, and anything could happen Wednesday and Thursday. 

• Hamdeen Sabahi, former member of Parliament, poet, co-founder of Kefaya! movement: Sabahi is an interesting candidate. Only a week ago, I would have dismissed him as a protest vote by those who simply don't want to vote for stronger candidates with a secularist background. But Sabahi came in fourth among Egyptians voting abroad this month, and brings a strongly anti-Israel and pro-leftist orientation to the presidential campaign. He has been endorsed by prominent novelist Alaa El-Aswani, openly calls for review if not outright abrogation of the Camp David Accords and is an out-and-proud Arab nationalist in the mold of Gamal Abdel Nasser, leader of Egypt after the 1952 revolution. His party, Karama (Dignity), holds six seats in the Egyptian People's Assembly under the banner of the Muslim Brotherhood's Democratic Alliance, but he is running as an independent. Calling on the era of Gamal Abdel Nasser is risky, because while Nasser's proud nature led to a few successes in Egypt, many Egyptians associate the 1952 revolution with failure against Israel, a sprawling, bloated public sector fueled by a Nasser-era law mandating employment for every Egyptian with a college degree, dictatorship and military rule. Yet I spoke with a friend who decided to vote for Sabahi; she told me he was clearly not associated with the Mubarak regime and had no Islamist leanings, reason enough, perhaps, for many Egyptians' votes.
• Ahmed Shafiq, former prime minister: If Sabahi's standing in the elections is a surprise, Shafiq's is earth-shattering. The last prime minister under Hosni Mubarak — some say his preferred successor — somehow has achieved rising standing in the polls, to the dismay of many Egyptians. If he makes it to the top-two runoff, it is certain the Islamists will unite against him, remembering Mubarak-era repression. But in May's election, Shafiq brings to the table experience with the military (he's a former Air Force general), experience in politics as prime minister and minister of aviation and unqualified support for SCAF. In contrast to every other candidate involved with the Mubarak era, and certainly those who have always been in opposition, Shafiq loudly touts his connection to the past. He rarely mentions the revolution, openly talks of countering the Islamists — again, it's a wonder he even has this much support. But a survey by Cairo's Al Masry Al Youm newspaper put him first among the candidates this week. Anything could happen Wednesday and Thursday, particularly if the military decides it has had enough of democracy and begins stuffing ballot boxes.

We reach the final group of contenders now, two of which I would expect to emerge victorious later this week. Who of these three, or one of the last two? Nobody knows. 

• Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, former member of the Muslim Brotherhood: When I first read about Aboul Fotouh earlier this year, I had thought there was no way he could win. There was a plausible path — if the Muslim Brotherhood stuck to their plan to stay out of the presidential election, if secularists were split — but that path hasn't exactly worked. What has is a tremendous sequence of events falling in Aboul Fotouh's favor: the Muslim Brotherhood reneged on their pledge, fielding Mohammed Morsi; secularists and leftists fractured into the above set of candidates and Amr Moussa; and popular Salafist preacher Hazem Saleh Abu Ismail was disqualified due to his mother's American citizenship. Aboul Fotouh's draw is his big tent philosophy: supporters count themselves as liberals, moderates, secularists, Islamists, Salafists. The Salafist party Hizb al-Nour endorsed him, causing liberals to recoil in concern. But Aboul Fotouh still receives support from liberals like Google executive Wael Ghonim. More than any other candidate, the liberal Islamist can lay claim to a broad cross-section of the Egyptian populace. His guaranteed support for Christians and women reflects the views of many Egyptians, concerned now with unity, not division. He debated Amr Moussa in Egypt's first-ever presidential debate and won overseas voting. Look for him to likely emerge among the top three, if not receive a plurality of support.
• Amr Moussa, former foreign minister, former secretary-general of the League of Arab States: Moussa is an enigma. Some Egyptians call him felool, a derogatory term for the remnants of the Mubarak regime (including my Egyptian friend who voted for Sabahi). Some say his distance from the regime from 2001 on keeps him out of the hated category of "former regime official." Some point to his declaration in 2010 of support for Mubarak in presidential elections as reason enough to vote against him. But nobody can deny Moussa's tremendous expertise. He won considerable goodwill with the populace as foreign minister criticizing Israel, though the Arab League under his leadership advanced peace initiatives to various Israeli governments. He has vociferously campaigned in Upper Egypt, long ignored by the Mubarak regime. His debate performance won praise, including his questions of Aboul Fotouh regarding potential promises made to the Salafists. Yet Moussa is still mistrusted by many. Look for him to emerge among the top three, if not in the top two with his debate partner Aboul Fotouh.
• Mohammed Morsi, president of the Freedom and Justice Party, Muslim Brotherhood leader: Morsi comes with a built-in base of support. Freedom and Justice won nearly half of the seats in the parliamentary elections, and the Muslim Brotherhood's system of organization nearly guarantees him significant support. Morsi is from the conservative wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, opposed to the wing Aboul Fotouh used to belong to. He has supported, in the past, reviewing legislation with a council of religious scholars and making the presidency a male, Muslim-only position. He hails from the traditional Islam howa al-7al branch of the Brotherhood: Islam is the solution. Egyptians worry he will simply be a puppet for the Brothers' Supreme Guide and Shura Council. Yet his platform of neoliberal economics and conservative outlook could prove persuasive to Salafists resistant to Aboul Fotouh's liberalism. While I would cautiously put Morsi third in the polls on Wednesday and Thursday, one should never count out the Brotherhood, the most potent and organized political force in Egypt. It is certainly possible Morsi could emerge in the top-two, or even victorious.

This opening post was much longer than I expected, but that's what you get with 13 candidates to cover. For additional resources, check out the Arabist's rundown and Al-Ahram's "view on the street."

Look for a detailed post on Aboul Fotouh, Moussa and Morsi tomorrow, and my own personal pick (as an American and an Arabist) on Wednesday morning.

Welcome to 3boor al-7odud, Crossing Borders. 

أهلاً وسهلاً ومرحباً بكم في "عبور الحدود."