Jew World Order

“But 40 per cent of Egyptians live below the poverty line, and 30 per
cent are illiterate. Security isn’t working, nor are health and education
services.”

As if to underline the shakiness of Egypt’s infrastructure, the public address
system then briefly cut out. “You see?” he joked. “Even the
microphones aren’t working here in Smart City.”

A spritely, silver-haired 75-year old, Mr Moussa comes both highly recommended
and roundly condemned by his lengthy service in Mr Mubarak’s government.

For some voters, his 40 years in public life, including a decade as chief
diplomat of the Arab League, make him the ideal person to steer both the
country and the wider region through the uncertain years ahead.

For others, especially the young who demonstrated in Cairo’s Tahrir Square
last year, no “fulul”, or “remnant” of the past regime
is acceptable, period.

That he was one of the few relatively popular Mubarak-era ministers – so much
so that his boss allegedly saw him as a threat – cuts no ice.

Right now, however, part of Mr Moussa’s appeal rests not on what he was, or
may come to be, but on what he has never been.

He is not, he reminds his audience, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood – the
Islamist movement that alarmed secular Egyptians by taking 40 per cent of
the seats in last year’s parliamentary elections.

Anxious not to be seen to be grabbing too much power, the group had previously
pledged not to contest the presidency as well; in March, though, it changed
its mind, and now has both an official candidate and a former member in the
running. While both deny that they will turn Egypt into an Iranian-style
theocracy, opponents fear that too may be a broken promise.

“We either put Egypt on the right track, or we leave it to the mess of
different religious interpretations that some candidates are pushing for,”
Mr Moussa warned.

“When those candidates take their masks off, they will all prove the same
– they are trying to deceive people by being liberals and Islamists at once.”

The main “masked” candidate on Mr Moussa’s mind is Abdel-Moneim
Aboul-Fotouh, an ex-Brotherhood member who is now his chief rival for power.
A medical doctor by profession, Mr Aboul-Fotouh, 61, was once an
ultraconservative who backed the use of violence to establish an Islamic
state.

Today, though, he claims to be the champion of moderate Islam, and since
breaking away from the Brotherhood last June to campaign independently, has
attracted some of the liberal, secular voters that Mr Moussa also covets.

A professed defender of both the rights of women and Egypt’s Christian
minority, he has also benefited from the failure of the myriad “Facebook”
movements to provide a presidential candidate themselves (partly because the
minimum age for standing as president in Egypt is 40).

“I am a candidate for all Egyptians,” he insists. “I am not and
will not be representing the Muslim Brotherhood.”

That may be so, say critics, but were he to win, they doubt whether he would
really be a bulwark against the demands of his Brotherhood ex-comrades who
now pack the parliament.

Nor is the Brotherhood the only conservative group to which he might be in
hock.

Last month, the Brotherhood’s rival Islamists, the harder-line Salafist
faction, also came out in support of Mr Aboul-Fotouh after their own
candidate, Hazem Salah Abu-Ismail, was disqualified on a technicality.

Mr Aboul-Fotouh won their endorsement after a grilling about his Islamic
credentials by a Salafist clerical panel, to whom he described himself as “conservative
religiously, but not politically”.

Few, though, really see how he can simultaneously keep both Salafists and
liberals happy if elected to office.

Consistent polling data in Egypt is hard to come by, but a recent survey of
first round voting intentions by Cairo’s Al-Ahram Political Studies Centre
put Mr Moussa on 41.1 per cent, with Mr Aboul-Fotouh on 27.3 per cent. Ahmed
Shafiq, a former prime minister and air force chief, got 11.9 per cent, and
Hamdeen Sabbahi, a former opposition MP and outspoken anti-American, got 7.4
per cent.

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood’s official candidate, Mohammed Morsi, was trailing
on just 3.6 per cent – a victim not just of Mr Aboul-Fotouh’s splinter
candidacy, but also of the new Islamist bloc’s questionable performance in
parliament so far.

The 270-seat chamber, in which the Brotherhood has 105 seats and the Salafists
have 45, has attracted widespread criticism for obsessing over details of
Islamic faith at the expense of more pressing issues. Of particular ridicule
was a bizarre debate on whether a man could legally have sex with his wife
in the hours following her death, on the basis that they were still married
in the afterlife.

“They are talking about necrophilia when the country is in a shambles,”
scorned Ali Abdelwahab, a hospital doctor drinking after work in a Cairo
bar. As he did so, his mobile telephone rings, a colleague asking for advice
on a friend injured in a shooting.

“Shouldn’t parliament be worrying about the insecurity, with people
getting shot and robbed? A lot of Egyptians are losing faith in the
Islamists already, and will probably just vote for Moussa, even if they
don’t like him that much.”

Last week, Mr Moussa and Mr Aboul-Fotouh went head to head in a live televised
presidential debate, the first ever in Egypt’s history.

In a heated discussion that lasted more than four hours on Thursday evening,
the pair discussed everything from taxation to reform of Egypt’s hated
police service, Mr Moussa casting himself as the man of stability, Mr Fotouh
a figure whom liberals, Islamists and other reformists could unite behind.

However, the show was more remarkable for its unprecedented feistiness and the
fact that neither man was allowed to talk uninterrupted for more than two
minutes at at a time – rare in the long-winded world of Arab statesmanship –
than any decisive blow landed by one on the other.

Assuming neither wins an outright majority, Mr Moussa and Mr Aboul-Fotouh will
most likely go on to a second round of voting on June 16, when all eyes will
be on whether Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, Egypt’s interim
military ruler, honours his pledge to hand over power.

Some believe that after a year in which he has become almost as much of a hate
figure as Mr Mubarak, the weary-looking 76-year old commander will be only
to happy to retire, but many are convinced otherwise.

Only two weeks ago, 11 Salafists were killed by plain clothes thugs while
demonstrating for the end of military rule, an attack which many claimed was
orchestrated by the generals.

So far, there has been no polling on who would receive most second-round votes
in a run-off between Mr Moussa and Mr Abel-Fotouh.

However, while Mr Moussa does not necessarily draw the fevered crowds that
other candidates attract – the Smart Village auditorium was only half full –
he enjoys the support of much of Egypt’s “silent majority”, the
millions who have never been near Tahrir Square, and who prefer to keep
their politics to themselves.

Nicknamed the “Sofa Party” by revolutionaries because they prefer to
stay at home rather than demonstrate, they are arguably the biggest
constituency of all. And they are well represented among the business elite
of Smart Village, who fear that any radical government could undo the few
solid accomplishments of Mubarak’s crony capitalism.

“I worry that there will be a corporate witch-hunt just for the sake of
it,” said Hossam Salah, 36, a manager of a Smart Village firm.

“Some Salafists have already talked about nationalising some of the firms
represented here. There was corruption during the Mubarak regime, yes, but
also economic growth that created jobs.

“There is no way I will vote for one of the Islamist parties – I am a Muslim
myself, but religion should not be involved in government. Finding work and
providing for your family, that’s Islam, not growing a beard.”

A year of instability has already taken its toll on the economy, he points
out. Although tourism has recovered a little, construction on the remaining
30 per cent of Smart Village, for example, has ground to a halt.

Unfortunately, in an electorate with high illiteracy rates, no experience of
democratic politics, and a burning sense of grievance, rational economic
arguments do not necessarily win the day, admits Mr Salah.

“People here have never had proper economic and social debate – there is
no informed discussion, for example, of the relationship between tax and
spending, like there is in Britain over the austerity measures,” he
said.

“Candidates can say what they like – as long as they sound good, they’ll
get votes.”

Proof of that can be found just down the road from Smart Village in the shanty
town district of al-Saleba, where many residents have never even heard of Mr
Moussa or his rivals, despite the election campaign.

Nor do they much care. Here, the Egypt of the future is not about high-speed
broadband, but getting access – for the first time ever – to much more basic
utilities like water and electricity.

“I just want some respectable person to run the country,” sighed Al
Sayed Mohamed Ragab, 49, who lives in a roadside shack with eight children
and a flock of scrawny goats.

“Who will I vote for? Whoever provides me with bread and water.”