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.