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May 23rd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
There are already doubts of the fairness of some of the procedures put in
place before the elections both by SCAF itself and by the Presidential
Election Committee.
If the election process sees serious violations – as was so common under the
old Mubarak regime – the situation can explode in another round of
revolutionary protests. That will especially be the case if Ahmed Shafiq, a
former general and Mubarak’s last prime minister, wins.
The main competition will be between the candidates of the ruling military and
of the various Islamic “currents”. The former rely on the networks
of the central state bureaucracy, such as the security forces, the dissolved
National Democratic Party, and the beneficiaries of the regime such as
business and big families – all those who are seeking to preserve their
interests.
For them, victory for Mr Shafiq, or for Amr Moussa, Secretary General of the
of the Arab League and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, would be a
success.
On the other hand the Islamists rely on networks of Islamic religious
institutions, which despite its secular image ballooned during the period of
military rule after 1952. Their most prominent candidates are Mohammed
Morsi, a candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood and Abdulmoneim Aboul Fotouh, a
renegade former Brotherhood leader who promotes himself as moderate but is
also backed by the ultraconservative Salafists.
The question is which of these two institutional machines can capture the
so-called “Sofa Party”, those never before concerned with politics.
Over the last year and a half, these “average citizens” have become
fatigued by the absence of security, and the economic crisis. They are
worried by the collapse of the state, and cannot afford the consequences.
For these there is no place for risk: slogans of freedom and democracy are not
the top priorities of the more than 40 per cent who are illiterate and the
more than a half the population dependent on subsidies for their daily lives.
These voters with low awareness and high life burdens were obvious targets
during the parliamentary elections for the Islamist parties, who played on
their religious sensibilities and their daily needs. This time the same
voters are targets for the old regime propaganda machines, telling them that
Mr Shafiq, with his military background, is the best candidate to bring
stability.
This contest of machine politics, leading to another general in office, is not
what the revolutionaries who filled Tahrir Square in February last year had
in mind. And it is not clear that, once the results are known, they will
stand for it. There is a long way to go before Egypt’s “democratic
transition” plays itself out.
Magdy Samaan is a reporter for The Daily Telegraph’s Middle East Bureau in
Cairo and a former Visiting Fellow at the Rafik Hariri Centre for the Middle
East at the Atlantic Council
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