With the nominal withdrawal of Mohammed Fawzi Issa on Wednesday from the field of presidential candidates, there are now twelve men in the race for the office of President of Egypt for which the first round of elections will be held on 23 and 24 May. Should (as seems likely) no candidate amass the necessary 50%+1 votes in the first round of voting then a runoff election for the two top candidates will be held on 16 and 17 June, with the winner scheduled to be announced on 21 June.
The campaign season that began on 10 March with the formal registration of candidacies has been quite dramatic. A summary of the byzantine political machinations by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), Parliament as a body and individual parliamentarians, political parties, the Supreme Constitutional Court and the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC) is however beyond the purview of this diary.
Follow me across the orange whazzit, then, for a discussion of a) the electoral process, b) the five top-tier candidates and c) available polling data.
ELECTORAL PROCESS
The schedule for the 2012 Egyptian Presidential Elections is as follows (copied from Egyptian Elections, Part III):
5 March - 4 April: registration period for Egyptians resident abroad; the website for registration by expatriates went live on 3 March
10 March - 8 April: window for official registration of candidacy
26 April: announcement of complete list of candidates
30 April - 20 May: period of official campaigning
11 - 17 May: first round of voting by Egyptians resident abroad
23 - 24 May: first round of nationwide voting
27 May (-ish): the results of the first round of voting are scheduled (somewhat imprecisely) to be announced within three days of the conclusion of voting; assuming (as seems likely) that no candidate will secure the 50% + 1 required to be declared the winner outright, then the two leading candidates will go head-to-head in a second round of voting
3 - 9 June: second round of voting by Egyptians resident abroad, if required
16 - 17 June: second round of nationwide voting, if required
21 June: announcement of final election results
Today (17 May) is thus the final day for Egyptian expats to vote. Expat turnout has been variable: high as a percentage of registered voters in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, while relatively low in Europe and the United States (
Egypt Independent [12 May];
Egypt Independent [16 May]). Somewhat bewilderingly, the results of expat voting are scheduled to be announced several days
before nationwide voting begins in Egypt.
Polling stations are scheduled to be open from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM on election days, although judicial supervisors are authorized to extend those hours to accomodate large numbers of voters in the queue. Tens of thousands of polling stations will be open as the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC) has determined that each station should ideally handle a voter list of no more than 1000 voters, up from the cap of 700 during the recent parliamentary elections. Recall also that parliamentary elections were split into three phases according to the geography of governorates rather than a single nationwide election. Fifty-three domestic and international NGOs have been invited to observe the elections, including The Carter Center, although SPEC has come under criticism for dawdling over the release of the documents required for these NGOs to accomplish their work (Al-Ahram [16 May]; NYT [16 May]).
THE CANDIDATES
Of the twelve remaining candidates, only five can be considered top-tier candidates with a realistic chance to draw enough votes in the first round to qualify for the run-off. Nota bene: nicknames in parentheses represent my editorialization of these candidates, nothing more.
Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh ("The Renegade") - Abul-Fotouh is perhaps the most intriguing and least predictable candidate in the race. The arc of his political, social and religious thought has bent from ultraconservative Islamism in the early 1970s to the current self-styled brand of liberal / reformist Islamism. Abul-Fotouh's views on the relationship between religion and the state are seen by many Egyptians as a potential bridge across the secular / Islamist divide. His candidacy has served to expose a fault-line within the Muslim Brotherhood as he appeals to many younger and middle-class members in a way that the Ikhwan's original candidate (Khairat El-Shatar) and replacement candidate (Mohammed Mursi) seemingly do not. Abul-Fotouh's visible presence during the Revolution gives him a certain amount of credibility among the left, although his history with conservative Islamism and his endorsement by several Salafist organizations doubtlessly contributes to a degree of wariness. The fundamental question, answer unknown as yet, is which direction Aboul-Fotouh will tack if forced to prioritize between two seemingly contradictory strains of support, particularly if the reports of an endorsement from disqualified Salafist Abu Ismail prove to be true. (Egypt Independent summary; Al-Ahram summary)
Amr Moussa ("The Diplomat") - 'Diplomat" is apt in two senses here. On the one hand, Amr Moussa has a long history of service: representing Egypt at the United Nations, serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs and serving as Secretary General of the Arab League. On the other hand, Moussa quite adeptly maintained an arm's-length distance between himself and Mubarak, a strategy now bearing fruit as the criticisms of ties to the old regime are relatively muted. Moussa is a statesman, with perhaps the greatest name-recognition, though he is not immune to criticism from leftists for whom "elder statesman" and "history of service" must be balanced against his relatively liberal and secularist views. (Egypt Independent summary; Al-Ahram summary)
Mohammed Mursi ("The Ikhwan's Reliable Party Man") - In the wake of the disqualification of Khairat El-Shater, the Muslim Brotherhood's original candidate, the group nominated Mohammed Mursi, El-Shater's long-time protégé. Early last summer, Mursi was appointed President of the Freedom and Justice Party, in which office he failed to hold together the short-lived Democratic Alliance of the Muslim Brotherhood and liberal / leftist groups. Mursi's support draws primarily upon conservative and older members of the Brotherhood as well as those Salafists for whom Aboul-Fotouh is deemed to be too liberal. There should be no doubt that Mursi's candidacy will benefit from the Brotherhood's organizational abilities, but those abilities will need to overcome the perception of Mursi as the Brotherhood's substitute candidate. (Egypt Independent summary; Al-Ahram summary)
Hamdeen Sabbahi ("The Nasserist") - Sabbahi is... well... an anachronism. A prominent opposition figure since the late 1970s, Sabbahi has been an unwavering supporter of the Revolution and draws support from a number of leftist parties and organizations. The fundamental problem facing Sabbahi's campaign is whether the rhetoric of Nasserism and its inherent authoritarianism remains relevant in post-Mubarak Egypt. (Egypt Independent summary; Al-Ahram summary)
Ahmed Shafiq ("The Career Military Man") - Shafiq is a career military officer with extensive ties to the Mubarak regime, including his eighteen-day tenure in late January to mid-February 2011 as Mubarak's Prime Minister. Running on a law-and-order campaign, Shafiq appeals to the not-insignificant number of Egyptians who view the ousted President and his neo-liberal economic policies with sympathy. Despite the lack of an official endorsement, Shafiq is widely viewed as SCAF's candidate. (Egypt Independent summary; Al-Ahram summary)
Given available polling data, the seven other candidates are very unlikely to draw significant support during the first round of elections. I will simply list here their names, with links to summaries of their biographies and political views:
Abdullah El-Ashaal (Egypt Independent article; Al-Ahram summary)
Abul-Ezz El-Hariri (Egypt Independent summary; Al-Ahram summary)
Hisham El-Bastawisi (Egypt Independent summary; Al-Ahram summary)
Hossam Khairallah (Egypt Independent article; Al-Ahram summary)
Khaled Ali (Egypt Independent summary; Al-Ahram summary)
Mahmoud Hossam Eddin Galal (Al-Ahram summary)
Mohammed Selim El-Awa (Egypt Independent summary; Al-Ahram summary)
POLLING DATA
Though imperfect, available polling data from late April (once the field was set at thirteen) to the present do offer some (qualified) glimpses of what we might expect during the first round of elections on 23-24 May.
Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies
Polling dates |
Moussa |
Abul-Fotouh |
Shafiq |
Mursi |
Sabbahi |
21-24 April |
41.1% |
27.3% |
11.9% |
3.6% |
7.4% |
28 April-1 May |
39.0% |
24.0% |
17.2% |
7.0% |
6.7% |
5-8 May |
40.8% |
17.8% |
19.9% |
9.4% |
7.0% |
Egyptian Center for Research on Public Opinion / al-Masry al-Youm
Polling dates |
Moussa |
Abul-Fotouh |
Shafiq |
Mursi |
Sabbahi |
24 April |
14.1% |
18.5% |
5.3% |
3.6% |
5.0% |
1 May |
17.0% |
15.7% |
14.8% |
5.2% |
6.0% |
Center for Information and Decision Support (Council of Ministers)
Polling dates |
Moussa |
Abul-Fotouh |
Shafiq |
Mursi |
Sabbahi |
29 April-1 May |
11.0% |
11.0% |
6.0% |
2.0% |
n/a |
5-7 May |
7.0% |
9.0% |
8.0% |
4.0% |
2.0% |
12-14 May |
11.0% |
9.0% |
12.0% |
6.0% |
5.0% |
These polling data are, obviously, all over the place. The Al-Ahram Center's polling consistently shows Amr Moussa with significant leads and also shows a much smaller percentage of "other" and "undecided" voters. Indeed, attempting to draw comparable conclusions based on these three weekly polls is likely imprudent with perhaps one exception. All available polling indicates that no single candidate is likely to draw the 50%+1 support required to win the election outright in the first round.
For what it's worth (and in all honesty as I assess these polling data I'm not sure what they're worth), the Al-Ahram Center's most recent polling (5-8 May) also included questions related to potential head-to-head matchups in the run-off round, with the following results:
Amr Moussa (63.8%) versus Abul-Fotouh (36.2%)
Amr Moussa (68.0%) versus Ahmed Shafiq (32.0%)
Amr Moussa (77.6%) versus Mohammed Mursi (22.4%)
Abul-Fotouh (52.9%) versus Ahmed Shafiq (47.1%)
Abul-Fotouh (74.7%) versus Mohammed Mursi (25.3%)
CLOSING THOUGHTS
The lead-up to these presidential elections has been strange; the political bedfellows are strange; the polling data are strange; and the atmosphere in Egypt as Egyptians anticipate these elections was strange and tense. The question of how the SCAF will react to the results, whether they will respect them and relinquish power, clearly weighed in the minds of many Egyptians with whom I spoke during my recent time there. I'm not sure what to expect, although I will be stunned if any candidate manages to win outright in the first round. If pressed to make a prediction, I will anticipate that there will be a run-off between Amr Moussa and Abul-Fotouh. I'm not willing to predict the result of that head-to-head election as it is my belief based on anecdotal evidence that a run-off would be far closer than the polling cited above indicates.
Then again, who knows? Buckle up, folks...