Presidential election frontrunner Amr Moussa launched his campaign in Upper Egypt this week, reports Dina Ezzat It was with a mix of cheers and shouts, prayers and accusations, confidence and distrust that presidential election frontrunner Amr Moussa was received during his first election campaign in Upper Egypt. The campaign started in Aswan last Tuesday, and over the following five days Moussa's tour moved north to the towns of Luxor, Qena, Sohag, Assiut, Minya and Beni Sweif. In each governorate, the presidential frontrunner spent a day meeting with leading families, political activists and people attending his electoral campaign rallies to express either their support or rejection of his candidacy. In Beni Sweif, Moussa expressed his condolences to the families of the victims of last week's ferry accident. During his meetings with activists and the leaders of families and tribes in the Upper Egyptian governorates, Moussa indicated the outlines of an electoral platform that he has yet to announce formally. "Equity," or maybe "equality", seemed to be the key concept that Moussa was offering to supporters and opponents alike, promising to end discrimination against the Upper Egyptian governorates. "I have always thought that Upper Egypt has never received its due in terms of infrastructure, development or basic services," Moussa said at a meeting in Sohag. "What I have seen during the past few days proves that I was not exaggerating in my thinking, especially in governorates like Qena and Sohag that have all but been forgotten." As he did at every electoral meeting held during the Upper Egyptian campaign, the presidential election frontrunner promised to give more attention not just to improving services and infrastructure, but also to giving Upper Egyptians the right to greater inclusion in the selection for official positions. Above all, Moussa told his audiences that if he was elected president he would work with parliament and government to end the current system of appointing governors and replace it with a system of electing them instead. "I think this is the right way to make sure that the people of a governorate feel that their interests are being well represented to government, and that the latter is being kept well informed about the situation on the ground in every governorate," Moussa said. The "Amr Moussa for President" campaign also aimed to strike a call for an egalitarian approach to all Egyptians, irrespective of their creed or origins. To put this point across, Moussa met with Nubian figures during his meetings in Aswan, and during his visit to Qena he made a point of starting his visit at the Nagaa Hammadi Cathedral, the scene of a massacre targeting worshippers as they stepped out of Christmas Mass in January 2010, despite the recent furore over the appointment of a Coptic governor. In his campaign speeches, Moussa repeatedly stressed that he was keen to be a president who serves all Egyptians "without any shade of discrimination". Moussa also spoke with marked impartiality about the country's political parties and groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, though he insisted that he would remain independent of any party and would run for president as an independent. It was this non-discriminatory approach that Moussa used to defend one of the most controversial elements of his electoral campaign: the presence in it of figures from the previously ruling and now defunct National Democratic Party (NDP). Especially in Luxor and Minya, the presence of such former members of the NDP stirred attacks from members of the 6 April Movement and from people supporting the campaign of Mohamed El-Baradei, another presidential frontrunner, as well as from some commentators. "These people are Egyptian citizens, after all, and in any case I cannot decide who gets in to an electoral meeting and who doesn't," Moussa told reporters in Minya. "All Egyptians have the right to be present." In Assiut, Moussa said that "exclusion should not go beyond the leading figures of the NDP and those who were involved in corruption, electoral rigging or the abuse of power." At every stop on his Upper Egyptian tour, Moussa reminded his audiences that he had never been a member of the NDP even during his years as foreign minister under former president Mubarak. Moussa insisted that it was "unfair to suggest that everybody who joined the NDP should be classified as corrupt", adding that "I cannot go around passing judgements." However, protests against the presence of former members of the NDP were not only directed at these members themselves. Instead, they soon developed into shouts against Moussa himself as a former member of the toppled regime. "We don't want any faces from the old regime. We don't want you; we don't want you," shouted members of the 6 April Movement and the Mohamed El-Baradei promotion campaign. Counter-shouts from Moussa supporters of "we want you; we want you," ensued, and inevitably clashes occurred. In Luxor, four people were hurt and had to be hospitalised, while in Minya the situation was contained thanks to Moussa's intervention, who pleaded from the podium for his supporters not to throw members of the 6 April Movement and the Mohamed El-Baradei Campaign out of the hall. However, at least one member of the 6 April Movement was hit in the face, and another spoke of being subjected to intimidation by a knife-wielding Moussa supporter. Members of the 6 April Movement and Mohamed El-Baradei supporters who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly said that the presence of former members of the NDP was unacceptable. "I am opposed to their presence in the campaign of Amr Moussa, and I am opposed to the candidacy of Amr Moussa. I support the candidacy of Mohamed El-Baradei," said one El-Baradei supporter, Ahmed El-Sayed, in Sohag. El-Sayed had attended the Moussa campaign meeting in Sohag, but he had also shouted angry questions to the candidate, mainly about Moussa's former capacity as foreign minister under Mubarak. The fact that Moussa held this post has discredited him for many as a presidential hopeful. "It is true that I was foreign minister during the decade from 1991 to 2001, but it is also true, and very well known, that my policies as foreign minister were not to the liking of the toppled president," Moussa said in Minya. For members of the Volunteers for Amr Moussa for President campaign, who followed the tour of the presidential hopeful in Upper Egypt, the objections of the supporters of other candidates to the presence of former members of the NDP at Moussa's electoral meetings and to Moussa himself on the grounds that he was foreign minister under Mubarak do not amount to valid criticisms. "If Amr Moussa is running for president, it means he is set to serve all Egyptians, including those who were once members of the NDP," said Shaimaa Ali of the Volunteers for Amr Moussa for President Campaign. She said that there was "voluminous" press material available documenting the opposition of Moussa to the foreign policies of Mubarak, and that this was available to all those "who really want to know what Amr Moussa stands for". Shaimaa said that the Volunteers would soon be making the material more widely available, along with "much of the criticism made by Amr Moussa of the Mubarak regime since 2009." For some Moussa supporters who took part in the electoral meetings, the Volunteers' plan to promote the candidate was unnecessary, since Moussa's career was already well known to all Egyptians. "We are not talking about someone who has been living overseas for the last two decades and who decided to return to Egypt after a long absence," one Moussa supporter, Noureddin Abu Steit from Sohag, told the Weekly. "We are talking about someone who we have known for the past 20 years. We know that he has made some mistakes, to be expected because he is only human, but we also know that he has always been strong and independent in his views." Like other Moussa supporters who spoke to the Weekly, Abu Steit was convinced that "Moussa is the right man for the next few years." The words "strong man" were common in statements made by Moussa supporters speaking to the Weekly. However, a strong man can mean different things to different people. For some, the words can mean someone tough enough not to be turned into a puppet president while the army rules the country behind the scenes. For others, they can mean someone who is strong enough not to go begging for the support of any particular political block, including the Muslim Brotherhood, whose influence could later decide his policies rather than the will of the people as a whole. "Unlike someone like Mohamed El-Baradei, who is nevertheless a decent man, Moussa has a real basis of support among people who have known him for years. So, if he works with the Muslim Brotherhood or any other group it would be out of his wish to create consensus and not just to lobby for votes," said Mohsen Ali, a Moussa supporter in Minya. By the end of Moussa's electoral-campaign tour of Upper Egypt, members of the Amr Moussa for President campaign will have hoped that the tour will have conveyed clear messages about the ideas of the presidential hopeful and that he will have received some crucial messages from the people of the Upper Egyptian governorates in return.
