In normal times and places,
elections are moments of emotional overdrive. Egypt’s extraordinary elections
take that intensity to a new level, evoking a welter of dizzying emotions.
There’s lots of doubt, a good dose of fatigue, plenty of heart-pounding anticipation,
and an irrepressible sense of hope that things will turn out well. Nowhere is
this bundle of feelings more manifest than on the campaign trail of the
charismatic neo-Nasserist politician Hamdeen Sabahy.
During the final stretch of
presidential campaigning, Sabahy cranked up an already hectic schedule,
visiting dusty hamlets and provincial capitals alike while making sure to
appear on every single TV talk show during the past three weeks. In both his
stump speeches and media appearances, Sabahy casts himself as the
citizen-president who’ll put an end to the aloof, imperial mien of the modern Egyptian
president. “One of us” is his campaign's brand, and it resonates with those who
want a peer and not a patrician as their national leader.
Sabahy made his name
contesting rigged elections under Mubarak, turning his seaside hometown of
Balteem into a flashpoint electoral district that witnessed several voter
deaths in 1995 and 2005. After the revolution, he immediately set to work on
cultivating a national political profile, trying to maintain his Nasserist core
while building a broader constituency to launch a credible
presidential bid.
In this he faced the same
political and organizational dilemmas as his university mate and competitor
Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, but the latter has had more success in crafting a
broad-based winning coalition. A maverick without the Islamists’ formidable
electoral machine or the national name recognition of Mubarak-era insiders,
Sabahy’s electoral fortunes depend on whether voters are persuaded that he
represents a viable third way.
Presidential
Campaigning, Egyptian-Style
On a recent Friday afternoon,
Sabahy’s campaign cavalcade eases into Tamay al-Amdeed, a dusty town in
Daqahliyya province, Egypt’s
third-largest population center. Daqahliyya’s fertile countryside is a stunning
procession of emerald fields, holding cabbage patches, vineyards, drenched rice
paddies, citrus groves, and bushels of freshly harvested golden wheat.
It’s onion season, and the
main roads were dotted with stands selling just-picked onions in red mesh bags.
A little girl riding next to her father on a huge tractor tugs at his
gallabeyya sleeve and points to the passing campaign cavalcade, laughing in
delight.
Rather than focus only on
strategically important, densely-populated cities, Sabahy’s campaign makes sure
to visit out-of-the-way places like Tamay al-Amdeed, to the delight of the
locals. They gather to watch him go in and out of mosques, churches and other
places of local repute, and old and young alike run alongside his motorcade,
snapping cell phone photos, bantering with him, and shaking his hand heartily.
On the Daqahliyya trip,
Sabahy was escorted by the district’s MP Mostafa al-Guindi, Sabahy’s fellow opposition
parliamentarian from the Mubarak days and a co-member of the shadow parliament
formed after the rigged 2010 general elections. al-Guindi’s endorsement was an
added attraction, drawing people out on their balconies and into the streets to
watch the ever-smiling Sabahy waving to them as he stood out of the sun-roof
of Guindi’s gigantic black Hummer.
Earlier in the week, at an evening rally in Luxor in the public plaza adjacent to the magnificent Luxor Temple,
Sabahy was accompanied by other local luminaries who were his warm-up acts
before he took the microphone. The charismatic young Saïdi poet Hisham al-Gakh
was by far the most rousing speaker, expressing southerners’ signature mix of
intense regional pride and intense resentment at their marginalization in
national politics. “The rest of the candidates are afraid of us Saïdis,”
al-Gakh bellowed, “Except him!”
The crowd cheered wildly as
Sabahy took the microphone and shouted out his love for this neglected part of
the country. “We love you too ya Rayyyyyyes!” screamed out a middle-aged woman
behind me. A man near the stage called out, “Ya Rayyes, when are you going to
get Saïdi citizenship?!” Sabahy retorted playfully, “But I’ve had the
citizenship min zamaaaaan!”
The crowd went bonkers,
clapping and pumping their arms in pure delight. A turbaned older man to my
left called out to no one in particular, “A second Abdel Nasser walllllahi!” A young
man standing next to me beamed and sucked his teeth appreciatively, “What a
respectable man. He just looks presidential, mesh keda?” Hussein is an army
conscript so he can’t vote, but he’s assigned to secure a voting station in Cairo’s Nasr
City, he told me
excitedly. On his day off, he attended Sabahy’s rally to show support for the
candidate he would’ve voted for.
The Sabahy
Brand
Sabahy is a superior
communicator both on outdoor stumps and in television studios. He’s a magnetic
public speaker, holding listeners’ attention with his unscripted,
conversational style and lucid arrangement of ideas. He never prepares or
practices his speeches in advance, so there’s very high variation in what he
says, depending on audience, context, and TV interlocutor. This makes for an
entertaining listening experience and draws crowds, but it’s not always a good
thing.
The lack of preparation hurt
him on his television appearance on Hafez al-Mirazi’s show, where he was
grilled on his policy positions by several experts. He passed the political
questions with flying colors, but his answers on economic policy revealed a
lack of interest in crucial details. Sabahy gave the impression that he’s not aware
of the tough economic trade-offs that must be made if he becomes the chief
decision-maker.
But perhaps more than any
other presidential candidate, he’s a natural politician. He rarely looks tired,
stiff, or uncomfortable, is very quick on his feet, and appears genuinely
sincere in his meet-and-greets, not just glad-handing. He’s the only candidate
who seems to enjoy unstructured physical contact with large crowds, often
riding into his rallies on the shoulders of a supporter surrounded by a huge
human wave.
When his aides and escorts appear
frazzled, sweaty, and short-tempered, Sabahy is the picture of cool poise,
kissing babies, cracking jokes, and engaging in simple gestures that delight
his audiences, like drinking frothy sugar cane juice from local shops and
throwing carnations into the crowd.
The link between Sabahy and
his supporters tends to be highly personalized. His core devotees who’ve known
him for years are like groupies, brooking no dispassionate discussion of their
man. The new ranks of supporters he’s drawing from the large pool of undecided
voters are attracted by a mix of charismatic and programmatic appeal.
At a huge rally in Mansoura
where people waited two hours for him to appear, a Syrian woman from Der’aa
married to an Egyptian and living in Egypt for 19 years said she decided
on Sabahy because she didn’t like either the Ikhwan or the old regime. “Shafiq
is buying votes and just look at how the Ikhwan behaved in parliament, and
they’re pressuring people to vote for Mursi. When I listened to Sabahy I
believed him, I feel that he’s sincere in what he says.”
Two days later, at Sabahy’s
last public rally, in Cairo’s
densely-populated Matareyya neighborhood, a 23-year-old law school graduate said
she decided to vote for Sabahy two weeks ago after watching his interview on
the CBC channel. “My vote in 2016 will go to Khaled Ali, but this time I’m
voting for Hamdeen. The reason I’m attracted to him is that he focuses on the
completely neglected strata of society. If he succeeds in bettering their
condition, then the revolution will have succeeded.”
Her friend, a social work
graduate, said that until recently she was an Aboul Fotouh supporter. “I felt
that Sabahy had no chance, but after a negative experience volunteering for a
day with the Aboul Fotouh campaign and watching Hamdeen on CBC, I sensed his
sincerity in defending poor people’s interests.”
Despite his apparent surge in
the last two weeks, Sabahy’s brand of personal appeal and pro-poor policies are
unlikely to match Aboul Fotouh’s bandwagon. The question is whether his vote
share will keep him an underdog or lift him up to third or fourth place.
Politics as
Spectacle
In the days of Mubarak, and
by his design, politics was a ridiculous, vacuous spectacle, unconnected to
most people’s real concerns. The political class was intentionally made to look
foolish and venal, to reinforce in people’s minds the notion that politics is
futile, dirty, and dangerous.
As many commentators have pointed
out, the revolution reversed Egyptians’ forced alienation from politics. It put
politics back in its rightful place, in people’s daily lives where it belongs. And
not just in the form of freer political speech and expression, but more
importantly in the form of political praxis.
On Sabahy’s campaign trail, I
saw regular people enthusiastically partaking of this new field of politics. It
was a different kind of political spectacle, one where people came of their own
volition to engage in a meaningful political performance, not be forced to act out
empty political rituals.
Both on weeknights and
weekends, entire families came out to listen to Sabahy’s speeches. Enduring the
heat, dust, and stifling crowds, they stood patiently waiting for his arrival,
politely suffering through boring, untalented introductory speakers and
sometimes appalling logistics.
In assembling, they instantly
created a public sphere, an Egyptian agora where they exchanged political views
with strangers, watched other people, drank tea and ate tirmis, and clowned
around to pass the time.
These little guys were
heroic, waiting quietly for hours until Sabahy finally took the stage at 11:50 pm in
Mansoura. Like me, one of them began to wilt, but the other kept us awake with
his valiant cheer leading.
Not everyone who showed up
did so to support Sabahy. Some were curious, others hostile, and others just looking for laughs. In the town of Belqas,
a group of young men kept parodying the revolutionary slogan Sabahy has
appropriated: “‘Aysh! Hurriya! ‘Adala Igtima’iyya!” turning it into “’Aysh!
Hurriya! Ta’meyya!”
In Tamay al-Amdeed, as the
campaign cars filed out of the town to head for the next stop, a resident
called out from a balcony, “And don’t you come back here again!”
In Matareyya, a woman in the
audience was livid, railing the whole time. “These politicians are doing all
this just for themselves and for fame! They all want the seat! Why doesn’t Hamdeen
Sabahy go visit this kidney hospital right here? Let him go see the conditions
of the people in there. He’s just good at talking.”
After Sabahy left Matareyya,
organizers started swiftly dismantling the stage and putting away chairs. An
elderly resident with a cane took the microphone and started speechifying. No
one lingered to listen; people scattered to pursue the rest of their evening’s
plans. The man gave a moving lecture on the impending danger of a feloul
comeback, instructing everyone to make sure to vote.