Don't blink!

Don't blink, or you'll miss at least a dozen major changes to Egypt's presidential race!

When I wrote about this topic earlier this month, the issue of Abu Ismail's eligibility to run had just surfaced. A few days later, I listened to him speak to supporters at a local mosque as he denied in absolute terms the veracity of the election commission's claim that his mother had held American citizenship, and accused the Egyptian, American and Israeli governments of conspiring to prevent Islamists from coming to power.

A week later, the election commission announced that Abu Ismail was officially being disqualified from the race along with nine other candidates including former Vice President Omar Suleiman and Muslim Brotherhood-backed Kheirat al Shater (both of whose candidacies came as a surprise in the first place!). Disqualified candidates had 48 hours to appeal the decision, but none of the rulings were changed. Most candidates resolved themselves to this fate, but Abu Ismail has continued to fight it.

Since that initial ruling, Abu Ismail supporters began a sit-in outside the electoral court in Heliopolis, which some reports claim forced an early adjournment of the court to protect the security of the judge. The Abu Ismaili chants are partisan and/or religious: "the people want Hazem Abu Ismail," "the people want the application of sharia Allah," but also popular: "down, down with military rule." Perhaps most discomforting, some of them have been waving the black "flag of jihad" and some leaders have made and then retracted statements to the effect of: we have tens of thousands of supporters willing to die for us. Most of this is posturing, but it's still unnerving.

A year ago, these Salafis were condemning the revolution as an immoral act of rebellion against the ruler (they're very big on obedience) and defaming elections as forbidden because they place the people's will above that of God. Then they started forming political parties like Al Nour and Al Wasat, which won a significant number of seats in the parliament. Seemingly pleased with their electoral success, two Salafi candidates for president emerged.

More than their radical positions on Christian and women's rights, the peace treaty with Israel, tourism, etc, most people seem frustrated with this blatant hypocrisy, which can also be found in the Muslim Brotherhood. Wisely fearing a backlash from liberals and foreign governments, the Brotherhood promised early on not to field a candidate for president and even kicked out a member for declaring his candidacy (Aboul Fotouh, who is now a front runner). Then it decided to run not one but two candidates (one of whom has since been disqualified)! Now everyone is questioning the Brotherhood's true intentions, and the tide may be turning to the ousted Aboul Fotouh or Amr Moussa, a former Mubarak minister.

At the same time, nearly all the political forces have rallied around what might be considered the most significant achievement of the post-revolution era thus far: the political disenfranchisement law, which prevents top members of the Mubarak regime from running for office for 10 years. This should have been in place from the beginning, but the straw the broke the camel's back was the entrance of Omar Suleiman (former VP and intelligence chief) into the race. (It seems he entered the race in response to the Brotherhood's entrance, to combat the "Islamist takeover.")

For the past two Fridays, thousands of people filled Tahrir to protest the candidacy of Suleiman as well as Ahmed Shafiq, a long-time minister and the prime minister during the revolution's deadliest battles. While both Fridays' protests had a mix of the political spectrum, the long beards, galabiyas and niqaabs of the Islamists dominated the square. They have begun a semi-sit-in, with part of the square blocked from traffic by a huge stage that chants day and night in favor of Abu Ismail and sharia Allah. The atmosphere is quite different from last July's sit-in which was dominated by liberals, secularists and more generally, Cairenes.

More on that atmosphere in my next post tomorrow, the day that the final, definitive list of presidential candidates is announced.

It's a bird, it's a plane...it's Super Hazem!

Taken yesterday heading south on the Corniche towards Maadi. I guess the Lazim Hazim love fest in Tahrir had just ended...

Identity in Egypt's Presidential Elections and Abou Ismail

David Kirkpatrick at the New York Times published this article yesterday about the speculation that has been flaring for the past week about a candidate for the Egyptian presidency and the possibility that his mother acquired American citizenship before her death. The irony is that the candidate, Hazem Saleh Abou Ismail, who officially entered the race just a few days ago, has used populist, Islamist, anti-American rhetoric to propel him to the front of the pack in this presidential contest that still hasn't officially begun yet. Moreover, an Egyptian election law requires all candidates for the presidency as well as their wives, parents and grandparents to hold an Egyptian passport only. A stipulation that was expected to encumber liberal candidates, who often hold dual citizenship, is now coming around to haunt Abou Ismail supporters and affect the race in a major way.

The Abou Ismail campaign acknowledged that the candidate's mother held a green card and spent some time in the US, but denied that she ever acquired citizenship. They sent a delegation to the US to investigate claims that she was registered to vote in California, and the internet has swarmed with conspiracy theories that the US was doctoring documents to disqualify Abou Ismail. Earlier today, Egypt's election committee announced definitively that Abou Ismail's mother held a passport thus disqualifying the candidate. And today, Friday, Tahrir Square and the surrounding neighborhood was filled with bearded men carrying signs with Abou Ismail's face and wearing stickers that read: We will not allow manipulation.

This all makes for some very exciting electoral political drama, and it is illustrative of a growing plurality in the Egyptian political scene which has been dominated by one towering figure at a time for the past 60 years. But regardless of one's political orientation and how the law in question either benefits or harms that position, the law raises some interesting questions about identity.

Egyptians often say that they have been ruled for foreigners for thousands of years, as warring tribes, dynasties and later European powers conquered and reconquered Cairo (whose name means 'the victorious'). The 1952 coup against the British-backed King Farouk (who was of Albanian descent but whose mother was Egyptian) put an Egyptian in charge of the country for the first time. In the wake of the pan-Arab experiment led by Abdel Nasser, Egyptians are very sensitive that they be self-governed. But what does that really mean?

To understand self-government in Egypt, one must first determine what qualifies someone as Egyptian which people have been trying to do for centuries. The electoral law requiring that presidential candidates as well as their wives, parents and grandparents have never held anything other than Egyptian citizenship is one attempt to do so. It makes sense that a country's leader hold no other citizenship, to prevent conflicting allegiances. I can see the argument for the same requirement being applied to his wife as she would be living with him and have a strong influence on him. But to require that a leader's deceased parents or grandparents never have held any other citizenship has seemingly little to do with safeguarding a country's national interests. The thinking is more parochial, along the lines of: if he comes from the sort of family that finds value in societies other than his own, he cannot be trusted.

Certainly this type of thinking is not unique to Egypt, but I would venture to say that in this period of national soul-searching, it appears quite often.

Opening car doors for babes

It's well known that walking the streets of Cairo can be treacherous if you don't watch out for the cars, buses, microbuses, motorbikes, bicycles, donkeys, etc.

Tonight--on my way to a bar to meet up with friends--I came across a car idling in the street and blocking my way. Expecting the male driver to get out, I walked around the passenger's side only to find two women about to enter. Both were shrouded in loose, black cloth. The elderly one struggled to move from the curb to the car, while the younger one--perhaps her daughter--hand her hands full with an infant in swaddling clothes. I reached out like a gentleman to open the car door for the elderly woman, and the younger one thanked me. But then I hesitated for a moment too long and felt as if I had violated some private domain relating to visual and audial contact with two strange woman as well as the proximity to the closed setting of a private car.

I continued on my way, ever more satisfied with the prospect of a beer, and not one block away, I came across an almost identical situation! A car blocked my way, I passed around the passenger side, and found myself opening the door for a young, modernly-dressed woman carrying an infant in swaddling clothes! She thanked me (Merci!) and sat in the car, so I closed the door and, now really feeling like a chauffeur, managed to go one more block to the bar without the same thing happening again.

This will be a sign to you: You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes...