Egyptians look at a row of portraits of likely presidential candidate Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in Egypt's northern port city of Alexandria. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)[/caption]
Egypt’s presidential race is exposing the failings of the country’s political parties. What is really striking is that the parties have not only failed to put forward any candidates, but have in fact denied any intention of doing so, while remaining indecisive over who to back from the small selection available.
So far, not a single party has been able to nominate a candidate from among its own ranks despite there being dozens of registered parties. While Abdel Moneim Aboul-Fotouh, president of the Strong Egypt party, announced a boycott of the election, Hamdeen Sabahy became the first to officially enter the presidential race. Sabahy is the leader of the Popular Current, which is not a political party but a movement, and founding member of the secularist–Leftist coalition, the National Salvation Front (NSF). He does not have the full backing of either the Popular Current or the NSF.
Defense Minister and Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is not a member of any political party, since he is in the military—in fact, he hasn’t an ounce of political experience. However, he enjoys sweeping public support even if he lacks the backing of a strong political organization.
The reluctance of civilian candidates to take on the electoral race has paved the way for the emerging phenomenon of candidates with military backgrounds. As well as Sisi, General Sami Anan, retired Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, has announced his intention to run. Ahmed Shafiq, a former commander of the Egyptian Air Force who ran in the 2012 presidential elections, announced he may run should Sisi renounce his candidature.
There is a general confusion among political parties over their positions toward these select presidential candidates. Disputes have flared up within individual parties over their stance on Sisi’s potential candidacy. The same happened when Sabahy announced his decision to run—some activists saw it as an opportunity to inject competition and pluralism into the election, while others felt he had done wrong to himself and his compatriots.
The Islamist Al-Nour and Al-Dawa Al-Salafiya (The Salafist Call) parties are equally riven over support of Sisi. Their leaderships largely see the field marshal as the man of the moment and the right choice for the presidency, in addition to his not being opposed to Islamic Shari'a principles. However, many of their foot soldiers disagree, preferring a candidate with an Islamist background.
The Tamarod movement, which spearheaded the campaign to remove former President Mohamed Mursi, has not been able to stand up to this first challenge since the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood. Tamarod is riddled with division over the presidential candidates; some members, including co-founders Mohamed Abdel Aziz and Hassan Shahin, announced the movement’s support for Sabahy. But the movement’s leader, Mahmoud Badr, came out in support of Sisi and rejected other members’ backing of Sabahy. Badr wasted no time in suspending the membership of Abdel Aziz and Shahin. This episode casts some quite obvious questions over any future political role for the movement, when it seems so incapable of exercising democracy even among its own ranks.
All views expressed in this blog post are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, The Majalla magazine.
