The music was loud and patriotic. At any minute, I expected small children to break into “Biladee, biladee, bilaaaaaaaadee,” a song I know quite well after years living near an elementary school. But it was not the Egyptian national anthem serenading everyone within a kilometer’s radius. It was a boxy, high-topped pickup truck that if painted blue would be carrying police conscripts to some unpleasant task like guarding a sand dune. Plastered with billboards of presidential candidate Mohamed Morsi’s face and deafening loudspeakers, this was a rolling podium complete with a very hoarse orator on the microphone.
And it was conveniently stuck in traffic between Alexandria University and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. I met the person I was supposed to interview on the library’s patio, and we exchanged pleasantries while waiting for the truck to creep out of earshot. This impromptu concert was a common occurrence, she said, and she couldn’t wait for the elections to be over. Her companion nodded in agreement. The presidential debate was yet to air that evening. I didn’t watch the debate. Nor did the wedding party across the street from my hotel; at least, I assume those fireworks whizzing past my balcony were not celebrating a witty jab by Abdel Moneim Abolfotoh or Amre Moussa . They certainly weren’t celebrating anything said by Morsi, because he wasn’t even there — neither were the other 10 candidates.
As an American from a staunchly two-party nation, even I am amazed at how quickly the media has tried to package Egypt’s presidential election into a two-horse race — in this case the two horses who have been informally campaigning since early last year.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that 13 candidates is unwieldy, especially last month as we were putting together Egypt Today’s special elections issue featuring everyone who made the Supreme Presidential Elections Council’s final cut. And if it takes four hours to get through a moderated debate with only two candidates, I shudder to think how long it would take with 13. It would probably still be going on right now.
There will always be frontrunners in any pack, drawing attention like lightning rods. It’s much more convenient and dramatic for the media to focus on the top two, usually anointed by poll data. This by default forces obscurity upon the rest.
Of course, some candidates need no help in achieving obscurity. On Saturday, local media reported Abdullah El-Ashaal had dropped out of the presidential race for the second time, which came as some surprise to those who hadn’t noticed he was in the race at all. It came as a surprise to El-Ashaal, who on Monday denied the report, but no one noticed that either.
The local media has recently and perhaps grudgingly expanded its horse race to three, admitting Ahmed Shafik onto the track, in part because he’s doing relatively well in the polls. But they also did so because having the old regime’s last prime minister in the top three makes for dramatic press — all the more attack campaigning to report on. But it’s a mistake to assume that no one is thinking about the candidates outside the spotlight.
I was stuck in traffic with a conservatively bearded taxi driver in Alexandria who did watch the debate — all five hours of it. He was unimpressed with the two candidates, he told me, because all they did was attack each other. I pointed out that this is usually what happens in American presidential debates. Welcome to democracy.
This cabbie wanted Morsi as president, which I found surprising since the pundits have the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) candidate well out of first place's reach. Surprising until I learned that not only was my driver a staunch Muslim Brotherhood member, but he had actually been jailed during the Mubarak era in the same prison as Khairat El Shater, the FJP candidate disqualified from the race. Pundits might want to call this the cell block vote.
Judging from the number of his posters in my neighborhood, Mohamed Selim El-Awa — who isn’t even on the pollster map — either has an army of supporters or one very energetic fan with a giant pot of glue.
The poll number to watch is not candidate number one, two or three. It’s the undecided vote, which ranges from 15 to 38 percent, depending on which poll you look at.
A lot of people will vote just to be a part of history, and the candidate who makes the last impression will likely get the vote. Sure, campaigning outside the polling station is in theory illegal, but that didn’t stop Islamist party supporters from handing me leaflets on parliamentary election day — and I don’t exactly look like I’m eligible to vote, much less like someone who’d vote for Islamists.
I have friends in the Coptic community who tell me they don’t want to vote at all because they feel they have no protection under majority rule. For them, having elections before writing a constitution is like putting the cart before the horse and then removing the wheels — what’s the point? If they can be convinced that their vote will count for something, it just might.
Most of the political parties were created in the last year and don’t have a strong core of followers. Even the well-established Muslim Brotherhood, which in 2005 succeeded in creating a political opposition bloc in the thick of Mubarak-era oppression, is now having a hard time rallying the faithful, so to speak.
There are still a lot of potential votes out there, and the candidate who mobilizes them can affect the final outcome, either by bumping himself into the run-offs or by bumping a presumed frontrunner out of first or second place. This is not a traditional election, and you can’t count anyone out.
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