Amira Howeidy identifies the less obvious winners and losers in the presidential elections President Hosni Mubarak won the 7 September presidential elections with an overwhelming 88.5 per cent of the popular vote with six million ballots cast in his favour; Ghad Party leader Ayman Nour clinched second position with 7.6 per cent (500,000 votes) while Wafd Party leader Noaman Gomaa managed only a feeble 2.7 per cent (200,000 votes). The rest of the votes were divided between the remaining seven contenders whose names most Egyptians will by now have forgotten. Only 23 per cent, that is seven million out of Egypt's 32 million registered voters, bothered to vote. A staggering 77 per cent stayed at home. While these figures explain the obvious about who won and who lost in Egypt's first ever multi- candidate presidential elections they are only the tip of the iceberg. There were a great many other players who either scored or lost points. Mubarak's much talked about son, 41-year-old Gamal, is one example. Head of the National Democratic Party's (NDP) Policies Committee, he is best-known as the subject of persistent rumours that he is being groomed to succeed his father. Despite keeping a low profile throughout the three-week long campaign it is no secret that Gamal masterminded his father's campaign. And while there is no evidence that the campaign attracted more votes it did inject some liveliness into a political event the results of which were never in doubt. It introduced new standards of political campaigning to Egypt. And while it is true that the techniques were borrowed wholesale from the US -- most Egyptians, one suspects, failed to understand why rows of people sat behind the president during his speeches or why the 77-year-old Mubarak had undergone a sartorial makeover -- one positive spin-off was that the state-run television was subjected to a long overdue shakeup. It adopted a more professional look, even if this was in the service of the regime. For the first time in decades state-run TV didn't put you off; it actually had something to say and brought in intelligent professionals to say it. State-run TV succeeded where the national press, which appeared to see its role as little more than that of a dull, NDP mouthpiece, failed miserably. Transforming the most powerful weapon in the state's media arsenal may not be Gamal Mubarak's only achievement during the campaign. Post- election, his positioning within the domestic political arena is likely to undergo some transformation, something Nour tacitly acknowledged when he said his next battle "will be with Gamal Mubarak". The NDP's Policies Committee is now viewed as the party's most influential think-tank, according to Amr Hamzawi, a senior associate at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, while Nour, who secured second position though with a feeble 7.6 per cent of the votes, has emerged as the real winner among the 10 contenders. "Nour is now the leader of political dissent," maintains political expert Amr El-Choubaki. Nour's victory also contributed to the emergence of another, less obvious winner -- Egypt's elephant in the living room, the Muslim Brotherhood. The voting power of the "illegal" group's impressive popular base saw both Nour and Gomaa courting the Brothers. That it was Nour who appears to have been the more successful suitor has angered not only Gomaa's party, the Wafd, but also the government. Everyone was fighting over the Brotherhood's votes. Interestingly, two heavyweights on the NDP Policies Committee -- Osama El-Ghazali Harb and Hossam Badrawi -- said on Saturday that it was now time for the Brotherhood to be granted legal status and a role in the political process. Among the losers are the dissent movements that had opposed the elections but in the end had little impact on the course of events. Despite a high profile, both at home and abroad, The Egyptian Movement for Change (Kifaya) and its affiliates were unsuccessful in mobilising public opinion to prevent Mubarak's re-election. It remains, says Ayman El-Sayad, managing editor of the prestigious monthly Weghat Nazar, an elitist movement that enjoys little popular support. Kifaya has, however, blazed a trail that is now being followed by other groups, such as Shayfeen.com (We can see you) which, in the words of its founder Ghada Shahbandar, was formed with the goal of "increasing political participation through monitoring". Within the space of a few months Shayfeen.com had established 13 groups which monitored over 57 polling stations in Cairo and other governorates. Unlike Kifaya, Shayfeen.com members are ordinary Egyptians with no previous political affiliations who decided to take matters into their hands and "do something" about the rigging that has marred elections in Egypt for decades. This "people's movement", as Shahbandar describes it, is already planning strategies to monitor November's parliamentary elections. But would the run up to the elections have been the same were it not for the revolted judges? Their demands for full judicial monitoring of the elections, and complete independence from the executive, may not have been met in full but their battle for a free and fair vote marked a turning point in Egypt's modern history that promises to make November's parliamentary elections a very different event from the presidential one. "The judges won the respect of the public in the same degree that the [government appointed] Presidential Elections Committee lost it," says Tagammu Party Secretary-General Hussein Abdel-Razeq.
