Mohamed El-Baradei takes his campaign for change to the provinces, Gamal Essam El-Din reports A week after meeting with residents of Old Cairo Mohamed El-Baradei, the former director of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has decided to take his campaign for political reform to the provinces. On 2 April he chose Mansoura, the capital of the Nile Delta's biggest governorate, Daqahliya, as the venue for his first public appearance outside the capital. El-Baradei was accompanied by tens of television and press cameras to record every minute of his visit, which included prayers at the Nour Mosque. They also followed him to the small town of Minyet Samanoud, where he addressed a gathering of young people. The rally, which was hosted by former MP Raafat Seif, a leading member of the leftist Tagammu Party, went ahead despite emergency laws that impose a ban on such gatherings. El-Baradei told the rally that Mansoura was the first stop on a nationwide tour aimed at collecting signatures in support of his reform manifesto "Together we will bring about change". El-Baradei told the rally that change can be achieved in a peaceful way, by amending the constitution and holding free and fair elections, and that his main goal at the moment "is to mobilise as many people as possible on the streets to bring about the necessary reforms". "We want to refute the myth that reform is a virtual issue, confined to the Internet or else to the elite," said El-Baradei. "We want to show that this is an issue that concerns average Egyptians and that they are ready to go on to the streets to ask for change. The country must be moved into a democratic regime." Though El-Baradei felt confident enough to state that, "in the past couple of months I have been able to make people less afraid," it is unclear how true the statement is. Many of those who attended El-Baradei's Mansoura rally were struck by the bespectacled Nobel Peace Laureate's lack of populist appeal. "El-Baradei is a very reserved man. He appears gloomy and is not a good Arabic speaker," said one young man attending the Minyet Samanoud gathering. "He looked hesitant and unsure of what he is doing." "He lived more than 30 years outside Egypt which has led to his Arabic language skills becoming rusty," said a source close to El-Baradei. "He stammers when he speaks Arabic which is not a good thing for a man who wants to be the president of Egypt one day," noted a political observer. "How can you build a consensus for change when you stammer and lack the eloquence in Arabic to take your message to the millions of ordinary Egyptians, let alone the intelligentsia?" "El-Baradei's visit to Mansoura has served only to reinforce the impression that he remains out of touch with the realities of the country after three decades spent in Europe," argues Amr Hashem Rabie, a political analyst with Al-Ahram. "However noble his intentions it is too early for him to claim that he has witnessed an overwhelming desire for change among the Egyptian people." Rabie believes that if El-Baradei's profile has risen in recent weeks, it has done so in exceptional circumstances. Two of his potential rivals in any presidential election, President Hosni Mubarak and his son Gamal, are both more or less absent from the scene, the first convalescing in Sharm El-Sheikh after surgery in Germany, the second celebrating the birth of his first child, Farida, last week. One pro-government newspaper, irritated by El-Baradei's Mansoura visit, accused him of "exploiting churches and mosques, which he has never bothered to visit over 30 years, to market himself among ordinary Egyptians". Al-Ahram published a photo of El-Baradei sitting beside US Ambassador Margaret Scobey on its front page on Monday. "By publishing the photo Al-Ahram was clearly seeking to send out a message that El-Baradei is somehow America's man in Egypt," says Rabie. El-Baradei attended Easter mass at Cairo's Coptic Cathedral this week, flanked as usual by reporters and television cameras. Though he insisted he had been invited in a personal capacity and not as a potential presidential candidate, he later told the Twitter website he has found that "he felt sad when so many Copts spoke to me about their suffering as a minority in Egypt". He also described the National Assembly for Change, which he founded on 23 February, as forming "the only path for real change in Egypt". "Its strength," he said, "will lie in its ability to muster the support of as many ordinary Egyptians as possible." He remained ambiguous, however, about his plans regarding next year's presidential poll. Ayman Nour, leader of the Ghad (Tomorrow) Party who was imprisoned for five years on forgery charges, also chose mosques and Friday prayers as part of his so-called "door-knock mission" aimed at mobilising people for change. Nour visited the giant mosque of Sayed El-Badawi in Tanta, capital of the governorate of Gharbiya. Nour, who was the blue-eyed boy of the Western press for many years, may easily feel that El-Baradei has stolen the spotlight. Perhaps it was an attempt to attract attention that led him to choose the village of Kafr Al-Mesilha, the birthplace of President Hosni Mubarak, for a visit on 3 April. Both El-Baradei and Nour, insists Rabie, remain no more than "hypothetical presidential candidates", and not only because the final word on reform lies with President Mubarak and the ruling NDP. "It is also," he says, "proving difficult to shake the silent majority of Egyptians out of their slumber."
