This article was written in 2012
With days to
go before Egypt head to the polls in the country's first credible
multi-candidate presidential elections, I went on a short visit to Cairo. Having
followed Egypt’s news in various Egyptian and Arabic news channels, I expected
to see a country in chaos; an economy on the robes, absence of security, wide
spread crime, and recurrent strikes and demonstrations that the Supreme Council
of Armed Forces repeatedly blames for the deterioration of the country’s
economy. But I saw something else; I saw a nation in collective awakening.
My first
encounter with real people, other than the outspoken percentage of the
population we see on television, was the taxi driver who drove me home from the
airport. The 45 years old Moustapha expressed distrust in the Muslim Brother
Hood and their political arm the Freedom and Justice Party. “They said we want
30% of the parliament, they took 70%. They said they are against pulling trust
of the Egyptian government, now they want to form the government. They said we
will not run for presidency, now they have a presidential candidate”, Moustapha
said.
I wondered
whether the majority of Egyptians who voted for the Islamists in the last
parliamentary elections think the same way. I found the answer to my question
shortly afterwards, when I witnessed a heated debate at the Cairo underground
between a bearded* man who appeared in his 50s and another young man who had a
beard as well. The two were talking about the presidential elections and while
the young man defended the Islamists, the older man expressed his
disappointment in the Islamic parties referring to what he saw as a very poor
performance in the parliament.
It seems
this is a wide-spread attitude. According to recent Gallup polls, Egypt's
Islamist parties appear to have lost popularity since parliamentary elections
late last year. The popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood and its Freedom and
Justice Party (FJP), for example, have fallen considerably in recent months,
while the Salafists have witnessed a similar – if less dramatic – decline,
according to recent opinion surveys.
A poll
conducted in April showed that while 63 per cent of Egyptians in February said
they supported the Muslim Brotherhood, only 42 per cent claimed to support them
in April. The popularity of the group's FJP also fell considerably, from 67 to
43 percent over the same two-month period, according to the poll.
The
popularity of the more conservative Salafist movement, meanwhile, fell from 37
per cent in February to 25 per cent in April. The Salafist Nour Party, in
particular, fell from 40 to 30 per cent for the same period.
If the
Islamic movement is changing, Egyptian society is changing too. It’s a normal
scene now to find traditional Egyptian government employees, who have never
been part of any political movement, head to the streets to speak out about
their demands, no matter how unrealistic those demands are, and express their
dissatisfaction with their managers.
How would
that affect the results of the upcoming presidential elections? It’s still not
clear. People have decided consciously to eliminate candidates related to the
ousted Mubarak regime. They also feel they have given Islamists a chance, but
they failed them. Who would they choose then? That’s the question most
Egyptians are asking themselves now. But, does it really matter?
Well, I
don’t believe it does, because who ever will be chosen by those people as a
president now knows as people know that he can’t fool them anymore and that Egyptians
are now ready to take action to defend their rights, no matter what it takes.
*Growing a
beard is considered by some Muslims as a sign of religious devotion in Islam.
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