To kick off the official
start of presidential competition, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh’s campaign did a
smart thing and showcased the most energetic part of his base: university
students. Bedecked in the cheerful orange color of the campaign, they packed
into dozens of buses from across Egypt and poured into Alexandria’s famed
al-Qaid Ibrahim Square where they put on a marvelous show, pulsating with hope
and jubilation at the imminent prospect of real presidential elections.
It’s impossible to be around
a gaggle of college students and not catch their enthusiasm, especially if
they’re wisecracking the whole time while working like bees. After a march on
the Corniche, they stationed themselves in a nice grassy public space next to the
Ibrahim mosque and set up shop. An instant fairground emerged, with booths
selling campaign commodities and booths to sign up more volunteers; a poet’s
corner; a wall display charting milestones in Aboul Fotouh’s public life; art
stations; two roving guys with a drum; and a huge orange mural constructed and
painted by Alexandria
University students.
The poets’ stage hosted a
string of eloquent spoken word performances and one hilarious stand-up routine
where a young man parodied some highly imitable public figures, including Hazem
Salah Abu Ismail and the vulgarian Tawfiq Okasha.
God’s cutest creatures were
also out in full force, showing their support for Aboul Fotouh.
An energetic, friendly woman was
supervising the students constructing the mural. Dr. Yasmeen Zaki is a
professor in the Engineering faculty at Alexandria
University and was responsible for
securing a permit from the Alexandria
authorities and dealing with their bureaucratic obstructionism. “We’ve been
working like ants for the past six days, almost round the clock,” she said
cheerfully, as students carrying buckets of orange paint darted back and forth.
Zaki defines herself as a
liberal, and began working with the campaign a couple of months ago during the
collection of citizen signatures. She said that what most attracts her about
Aboul Fotouh is his personal honesty and ability to gather together different
currents, which she said secular candidates she respected like Hamdeen Sabahy
and Abul al-Ezz al-Hariri have not been able to do.
The theme of beyond-partisanship
was amplified by a group of recent college graduates from the town of Etay al-Baroud in Beheira
province. Unprompted, they took turns introducing themselves as “I’m
ex-Baradei, I’m ex-Ikhwan, I’m ex-April 6th.”
Hailing from one of the
Delta’s hardcore Ikhwan pockets that they said never allowed an NDP member into
parliament in the past 30 years, they delighted in describing how residents
reacted to their door-knocking for Aboul Fotouh. “I had dirty water thrown on
me,” said one with a huge grin. “I had dust and dirt flung at me,” piped in
another. Not to be outdone, a third quipped that he was lucky because he got only
clean sudsy water thrown on him.
Muhammad Abdel Rahman Hamada,
a recent law school graduate from Etay al-Baroud, explained why he’s a fierce
Aboul Fotouh loyalist. “Non-partisanship is good for this juncture, because
partisanship is exclusionary. My problem with the secular candidates like
Hamdeen who’s a Nasserist and Khaled Ali who’s a socialist is that they exclude
Islamists.”
Overhearing the Etay
volunteers recount the hostility they faced from Ikhwan supporters in their
district, an Ikhwan supporter interjected to explain why a strong party and
organization were crucial in the presidential elections. A heated argument
erupted over who Ikhwan youth would vote for. “The Ikhwan youth say they’ll
support Mursi but they’re really supporting Aboul Fotouh,” asserted Hamada.
“The problem with the Ikhwan is that their rank-and-file have no say
whatsoever,” yelled a middle-aged man who was listening in.
By this point, the sun had descended
into the Mediterranean and students had packed
up the fair and filled the square outside Ibrahim mosque for the evening’s main
event. Tens of thousands of students and Alexandria
residents filled the streets radiating from the square, where a large stage had
been set up and two giant screens were stationed farther back for crowds far from
the stage.
Under huge strobe lights, in
strode poet Abdel Rahman Youssef, starting things off with high-energy oratory
that was met with wild cheers from the audience and drumbeats and chants from
the Aboul Fotouh Ultras.
Like a series of warm-up acts
before the entrance of the rock star, a string of luminaries then took the
stage to deliver punchy, rousing endorsements that revved up the audience. AUC
professor and Aboul Fotouh adviser Rabab El-Mahdi said that Aboul Fotouh
represented the promise of true inclusion after decades of Mubarak’s
destructive divide-and-rule policies, leading the crowd with rousing chants of
“Yasqut yasqut hukm al-‘askar!”
A representative of the
association of the deaf and mute announced their backing. A representative of
the Revolution Youth Coalition, the most credible post-revolution youth alliance,
announced his endorsement. A famous athlete, a young parliamentarian, an old
friend of Aboul Fotouh: all tramped on and off stage, stoking the sense of
anticipation.
The crowd went wild when it
was the turn of Salafi Nour Party spokesman Nader Bakkar, greeting him with throaty
chants of “One hand! One hand!” Khaled Said was there in spirit, as the Ultras invoked
his memory and led the crowd in a haunting chant with heart-pounding drumbeats:
“Fil Ganna! Ya Khaled! Fil Ganna! Ya Khaled!” And when Wael Ghonim came onto
the stage to announce his endorsement, commotion ensued, with young people
standing on chairs and screaming wildly.
“And now, the student who
stood up and said no to Sadat….” but before the female MC could finish her
sentence, the crowd erupted, the Ultras set off massive fireworks, a campaign
theme song started blasting, and Aboul Fotouh strode onto the stage in a
cream-colored suit sans tie. Before starting his speech, he had to wait a good
three minutes as this corner of Alexandria
thundered its support for his bid to become one of the world’s most powerful
political leaders.
From his origins as a
charismatic leader of a faction within the Ikhwan, in less than a year Abdel
Moneim Aboul Fotouh has experienced a stunning political transformation, metamorphosing
into a national leader to be reckoned with. Unlike other dissidents who shined
under Mubarak’s debilitating dictatorship only to be eclipsed in the exciting
rough and tumble of Egypt’s
new politics, Aboul Fotouh has augmented and diversified his political capital,
comfortably easing into the role of presidential contender.
His trajectory is but one vignette
into what this revolution has done, smashing the brick ceiling on Egyptian
politics and giving free rein to a host of political talents and possibilities.
Looking around me at the Alexandria rally, it
wasn’t the hyperactive students who stunned me, but the middle-aged mothers and
fathers (and a few grandparents) who came out to stand three hours in the open
air on a weeknight to listen to a politician. Aboul Fotouh has tapped into the
Egyptian middle class’s thirst for public engagement, the same middle class
that Mubarak shoved away from politics and steered into parochial
neo-conservative privatized pursuits and corrosive conspicuous consumption.
To this educated middle
class, Aboul Fotouh’s scrambling of the old categories of Egyptian politics is
profoundly attractive. Here are mainstream Islamists piled onto Salafis piled
onto Wasat Islamists piled onto liberals and leftists and feminists and
unaffiliated people and people who still harbor a deep disdain for and mistrust
of politics (one of Mr. Mubarak’s many parting gifts). For this diverse voter
bloc, ideological purity or even ideological co-existence is less important
than finding a trustworthy problem-solver president who isn’t going to fleece
us all over again.
Aboul Fotouh’s programmatic
appeal lies in an effective mix of a bold foreign policy (“strong Egypt” is his
chief slogan), a centrist economic program, and an inclusive, ecumenical stance
on identity issues that plays up Egyptians’ shared benign conservatism, whether
they’re Muslims or Copts, and rubbishes the inward-looking aggressive
conservatism that’s flourished within both communities over the past 15 years.
Personally, Aboul Fotouh is
an unassailable character. He has plenty of integrity, lacks artifice in his political
speech, possesses a pleasant old-fashioned reserve, and has a strong sense of
dignity that doesn’t come off as imperious or in any way entitled (that’s Amr
Moussa’s territory). He’s one of those rare Islamists who are not embarrassingly
provincial like Muhammad Morsi, or remote, calculating organization men like Khairat
al-Shater, or fence-sitters like Muhammad al-Beltagui, or any of the
yet-untested Salafi upstarts.
It’s an open question whether
Aboul Fotouh’s personal and programmatic qualities can bring his brand to the
lower classes, who are equally intent on political participation but lack the
time and leisure of middle class citizens. Here lies the significance of the
Salafis’ bombshell endorsement of Aboul Fotouh, for it is they who’ll carry his
message to the lower and working classes. However, given the internal diversity
of the Salafi world, it remains to be seen whether Fatehoon Salafis can convince
their communities to switch allegiance from Hazem Abu Ismail and Muhammad Morsi
to Aboul Fotouh.
If he does make inroads into
the pious, suffering lower classes and peels off some supporters from the
nervous upper classes, the divided Copts, and the fractious secular left, Aboul
Fotouh’s bandwagon will be hard to beat.
