Saturday, Apr 07, 2012


   (From THE WALL STREET JOURNAL) 
   By Matt Bradley

CAIRO -- The abrupt entrance into Egypt's presidential race of a former loyalist to the Mubarak regime, the official arrival of a Muslim Brotherhood candidate and the potential exit of a populist Islamist preacher upset expectations about who would dominate the election.

Leading to the formal close on Sunday of the period in which candidates can register for the May 23-24 presidential poll, former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman declared on Friday that he would run for president.

Liberals and Islamists said the move suggested the interim military leadership had found a loyal candidate and was going back on its commitments not to interfere in the election.

In Mr. Suleiman, the military appeared to have offered a rejoinder to the dominance of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Khairat Al Shater, the former deputy head of the Brotherhood and its primary strategist and financier, submitted his candidacy papers on Friday. With the backing of the Brotherhood, who have a nearly 50% plurality in Parliament, Mr. Al Shater has become the candidate to beat.

Meanwhile, thousands of supporters of hard-line Islamist presidential candidate Hazem Saleh Abu Ismail descended on downtown Cairo to protest his possible elimination from the race because his mother may have held U.S. citizenship.

"What we are seeing is a flexing of muscles between the Brotherhood and the military," said Khaled Fahmy, political analyst and history professor at the American University in Cairo.

The Muslim Brotherhood has locked horns with the interim military rulers after nearly a year of close cooperation. The Islamist organization has dominated the Parliament, voted Islamists into most of the seats in a committee charged with drafting the new constitution, demanded the withdrawal of the military-appointed cabinet and fielded a presidential candidate.

But the Brotherhood's political power and the perceived lawlessness of Egypt's streets could position Mr. Suleiman, who served more than a decade as intelligence chief, as a pro-stability candidate.

Mr. Suleiman was once seen as possible successor to President Hosni Mubarak, who in a sop to protesters named him as vice president shortly before he was ousted early last year. Yet many activists remember him best for his remark during the uprising that Egyptians were "not ready for democracy."

Islamists and liberals worry that Egypt's exhausted, increasingly penniless public will look past Mr. Suleiman's background and vote for him out of nostalgia for prerevolutionary order.

Left behind in the emerging political mix are the secular-minded liberal politicians and activists who instigated the protests that ousted President Hosni Mubarak 14 months ago. The advent of electoral politics has alienated the protesting youths once celebrated as the heirs to Egypt's political future.

"All of this is beyond the worst-case scenario that we expected a year ago," said Bassem Sabry, a liberal-minded Egyptian blogger. "I feel left out. This just feels less and less like a real revolution."

If no one wins an outright majority, the two top candidates will appear in a runoff that analysts say is likely to favor an Islamist candidate.

Islamist supporters of Mr. Abu Ismail, a firebrand intellectual and preacher, protested Friday at Egypt's Ministry of Interior, which said on Thursday that Mr. Abu Ismail's late mother was an American citizen.

A constitutional declaration in March prohibits a child of a dual citizen from the presidency. Mr. Abu Ismail contends that his mother was a U.S. permanent resident, not a citizen.

The Egyptian public won't know until Sunday whether the High Election Commission will reject Mr. Abu Ismail's candidacy. But the jilted feelings of his legions of followers, along with Mr. Suleiman's nomination, are likely to deepen the distrust between the vast ranks of Egyptian Islamists and a military regime that continues to hold the bulk of Egypt's political power.

The spontaneous display of popular support is evidence of Mr. Abu Ismail's ascendant popularity. His self-stylization as stolid defender of Islamic law and a challenge to the influence of the U.S. and Israel has cast him as a crowd favorite.

"He represents a threat to Israel and the United States," said Hani Hafez, one of Mr. Abu Ismail's campaign managers. The Interior Ministry, he said, "spent all their lives lying to the Egyptian people. So it isn't difficult to believe that they would do one more."

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

07-04-12 0654GMT