DR MUHANNED IBRAHIM
محـــ القلعة ـــــــــارب
 الديانة : مسلم بفضل الله تعالى
 الجنسية : مصرى بفضل الله
عدد المساهمات : 1470
 المهنة : لا حياة بدون عمــــل .. ولا عمل بدون أمــــل !!
نقاط : 1087951
السمعة : 30
تاريخ التسجيل : 01/05/2010
 العمل/الترفيه : مسلم عمله وقوله متوازيان
 المزاج : حازم ثابت صارم حنون رحيم كريم
 |  موضوع: Islamist vote blowing in the wind, as Abu-Ismail and El-Shater exit race 2012-05-07, 9:51 pm | |
| Islamist vote blowing in the wind, as Abu-Ismail and El-Shater exit race
Many
Egyptian presidential candidates, including secular frontrunners Moussa
and Sabbahi, are busy lobbying for the religious vote after
disqualification of the two Islamist favourites Zeinab El Gundy, Wednesday 25 Apr 2012
El-Shater and Abu-Ismail
After the exclusion of Hazem Abu-Ismail and
Khairat El-Shater, two strong Islamist candidates, from the first
presidential elections after the January 25 Revolution set for May, the
Supreme Presidential Electoral Committee has now rejected the
candidates’ petition against their exclusion from the race, leaving the
race for the powerful Islamist vote in Egypt wide open. Abu-Ismail,
a former Muslim Brotherhood man and known to the public as a Salafist
Islamist preacher, was regarded as the number one Islamist presidential
candidate for the Salafists, as well as for conservative Islamists. Khairat
El-Shater, the vice chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood and one of its
leading figures, was expected to win the substantial Brotherhood vote.
The Brotherhood’s leadership had in fact decreed that any member who
voted for a different candidate, particularly rival Islamist figure Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh, would be expelled from the organisation. Accordingly, there are now three Islamist presidential candidates running: former leading Brotherhood figure Abul-Fotouh; current leader of the Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, Mohamed Mursi; and famous Islamist thinker and lawyer Mohamed Selim El-Awa. Based
on the latest poll, conducted among 1,200 citizens by Al-Ahram
Political and Strategic Centre, and published last Sunday after the
exclusion of Abu Ismail, Omar Suleiman and El-Shater, the favourite
candidate among the sample was Amr Moussa with 40.9 per cent, followed
by Abul-Fotouh with 25.2 per cent, then Ahmed Shafiq at 10.5 per cent,
then Hamdeen Sabbahi at 9.3 per cent. The Muslim Brotherhood’s
presidential candidate Mohamed Mursi came in at only 0.9 per cent. According
to the poll, the second preferred choice for Hazem Abu-Ismail’s
supporters was Abul-Fotouh, at 25.8 per cent, followed by Amr Moussa at
20.8 per cent, followed by Khairat El-Shater on 20.5 per cent. The
second favourite presidential candidate for Khairat El-Shater’s
supporters was Abu-Ismail on 54.3 per cent, followed by Mohamed Mursi on
12.6 per cent, then Abul-Fotouh on 11.6 per cent. Al-Masry Al-Youm
Arabic newspaper published its own poll on 14 April; Abul-Fotouh was
the second preferred choice for Abu- Ismail and El-Awa’s supporters, as
well the second option for El-Shater’s supporters. Although
Abul-Fotouh has a good chance among Salafist voters based on these
results, he does not have the same strong support among Muslim
Brotherhood voters, who shifted their vote choice from Khairat El-Shater
to Mohamed Mursi automatically. As
in the case of El-Shater, the Brotherhood leadership re-issued its
order to its members not to vote for anyone in the presidential
elections except the group’s official candidate, Mohamed Mursi. Last
Monday, thousands of Brotherhood members attended a Mursi election
rally event at Mansoura stadium in full force; some Brotherhood members
took photos of the crowds and compared the image to that of the Muslim
holy site the Kaaba during the Islamic pilgrimage of the hajj, and asked
if any other Islamist candidate had this level of popularity. Nonetheless, the fight over the Islamist vote is not only about the Brotherhood, but also about the Salafist vote. The
Salafist vote, which was leaning towards Abu-Ismail, is now the target
of the remaining presidential candidates, who are particularly keen to
get the endorsement of the major Salafist groups in the country. On
the same Monday, Abul-Fotouh met with the sheikhs of the Salafist Front
in Alexandria to discuss his presidential programme and to seek their
endorsement and recommendation. Meanwhile
on Tuesday, Mursi, along with excluded candidate Khairat El-Shater ,
met with Dawa El-Salafiya (Salafist Call) sheikhs in Alexandria for
similar discussions The Salafist-oriented Nour Party
is still yet to announce who has received its endorsement, and is
waiting for the final list of eligible presidential candidates. Non-Islamist
candidates also see potential in the Salafist vote. Pro-revolutionary
Nminderite candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi promised in a public meeting two
days ago in Quwayansa, Monufiya governorate, that despite his support
for the civilian state, he will seek to adopt the principles of Islamic
sharia. Former prime minister and recently disqualified presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq had also flirted with the Islamist vote on, saying on television that he is a Sufi and does not stand against sharia law. Frontrunner Amr Moussa also met
the Salafist Front in Alexandria on Tuesday to discuss his programme
with them, and the day before, he had meetings with representatives of
the Sufi orders in Egypt. Both
the El-Gabha El-Salafiya (Salafist Front) and Dawa El-Salafiya
(Salafist Call), two major conservative groupings, announced already
that they will declare their full position on presidential candidates
when the committee issues its final list of candidates on 26 April. Just
as revolutionary groups fear that having several pro-revolutionary
presidential candidates will divide the pro-revolution vote, Islamist
powers fear that the Islamist vote will be divided in the same way, as
it seems unlikely that the Islamist groups will agree on a single
candidate. There have been attempts by the centrist-Islamist Wasat Party
in the past months to create some kind of deal between the Islamist
presidential candidates, especially between Abul-Fotouh and El-Awa, but
the attempts have so far failed. After
announcing the sudden candidacy of El-Shater as the official
presidential candidate of the Brotherhood , there were rumours of talks
between the Salafist leading groups and Hazem Abu-Ismail about giving
Abu-Ismail the vice-presidency if El-Shater became president, but the
talks failed. The
Brotherhood have recently made it clear that they may agree to a
unified Islamist candidate in order not to split the vote, on the
condition that the candidate will be their man, Mursi, who was described
by Brotherhood leaders in press two days ago as the “only Islamist
candidate in the race.” Between
polls, partisan endorsements, and the long wait for the final list of
eligible candidates on 26 April, it is still unclear which of these
candidates will capture the support of the Islamist street. | |
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