Egypt's conventional political forces are united in their search for a consensual candidate in the upcoming presidential elections, but one may not be forthcoming, writes Khalil El-Anani* The conventional political forces in Egypt are scrambling to find a candidate to back in the forthcoming presidential elections. By conventional forces is meant the military establishment, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafist movement, the government bureaucracy, and, of course, the remnants of the former Mubarak regime, who are waiting for the chance to make a comeback and put the whole of the past year behind us, as if it were a figment of the country's collective imagination. Naturally, the chief condition for these forces' prospective candidate is that he should not be from "Tahrir Square", in other words, that he should not be a revolutionary. Not that they would say this outright. Rather, they are calling it a quest for a "consensual candidate". What they mean by this is an individual that has been agreed upon by "all forces", which, divided as they are by conflicting interests and outlooks, are nevertheless agreed on a single temporary aim: to ensure that the country's next president is some kind of political freak -- a political non-entity with no real powers and devoid of any ideological weight. Over the past week, the Egyptian press has been carrying news of public and private efforts aimed at persuading current Arab League Secretary-General Nabil El-Arabi to put himself forward for the office. El-Arabi has responded with an unqualified no. He will not run for president "under any circumstances whatsoever". Regardless of the accuracy of these reports, the fact that they have appeared is informative in itself. The reports tell us that the forces that have been pushing for a "consensual president" are now panicking in their attempts to come up with a cardboard president and that their methods of doing so have been conspiratorial in nature and therefore contradict the spirit and practice of democracy and the aims of the Egyptian revolution. The latter was waged to empower the Egyptian people by promoting their rights and their ability to exercise these effectively. The flurry of behind-the-scenes activity further indicates that the forces in question have not been able to reach an agreement on any of the current presidential hopefuls -- Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh, Amr Moussa, Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, Hamdeen Sabahi, Mohamed Selim El-Awwa, Ahmed Shafik and Omar Suleiman -- and that they have therefore had no choice but to start searching for another candidate who is not on the existing list in order to avert conflicts between them. Any prospective "consensual" candidate will have to meet a number of conditions. For the generals, he will have to be someone who "sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil" with regard to the military establishment's political, economic and social powers and privileges. He cannot be politically or ideologically opposed to the military leaders, and he cannot be a popular or charismatic figure who could eventually assert himself and steer the country away from the control of the military. This would rule out Abul-Fotouh, Abu Ismail and Sabahi. For the Muslim Brotherhood, any suitable prospective candidate should not be Islamist, but should not be averse to the Islamists either, and should be able to win the support of the other forces. These conditions would rule out Abul-Fotouh, Abu Ismail and El-Awwa. The Salafis, consisting of various Salafist parties, organisations and movements, also have three conditions for any prospective candidate: he should be an Islamist or connected with the Islamist movement, should promote the application of Sharia law, and should not be a remnant of the former regime. These conditions favour Hazem Abu Ismail and rule out Suleiman and Moussa, both of whom are associated with the former regime. The government bureaucracy and the entrepreneurial classes and influential families that intersect with it would clearly not favour either an Islamist or a revolutionary candidate for fear of jeopardising their remaining privileges. These conditions would once again rule out Abul-Fotouh, Abu Ismail and Sabahi. Yet, in spite of their differences all these forces are keen to find a candidate that they think they can control and steer in a direction that would serve their interests, or at least not work against them. The reports that have been appearing in the Egyptian press confirm that the forces have recognised this common denominator, as well as the need for them to engage in haggling until they are able to produce a candidate who is more or less conducive to their needs. The very notion of a "consensual president" is undemocratic, since the present backroom bargaining and negotiation is in reality a bid to deprive millions of Egyptians of the right to choose the person who will serve as the first president of the country after the revolution through fair and equitable democratic processes that are untainted by political and ideological dictates from above. Indeed, this backroom bargaining is an attempt to reproduce the selection machinery of the former regime, which was notorious for having the People's Assembly choose a president, who would then be presented to the public in a referendum and who would inevitably win a minimum of 90 per cent of the votes. In post-revolutionary Egypt, the notion of a "consensual president" picked by the leaders of various political forces is not only conspiratorial but also an obvious affront to the revolution and the revolutionaries. Millions of Egyptians did not gather in Tahrir Square or other landmark squares up and down the country in order to topple a dictator only to find a "consensus president" forced down their throats with no regard for electoral competition or the will of the electorate. The advocates of this notion have let slip their disdain for the people and their ability to choose their own president, as well as their contempt for the other political forces and movements that have been excluded from this "consensus". For the moment at least El-Arabi's rejection of the offer to become the "consensual president" has put the conspirators in a quandary. What will they do if they can't come up with a candidate who fits the bill by the time the nomination process begins? There are three possible scenarios. The first is that the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the Muslim Brotherhood could agree on a candidate. Such a candidate would need to be able to contain the revolution and eliminate pockets of revolutionary activity such as the student movement, the remainder of the revolutionary bloc and organisations operating in the field of human rights and civil rights advocacy. He could not have a broad popular base that would enable him later to turn against the SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood, but he should be able to present a good façade abroad and be skilful in his handling of foreign relations, especially with Tel Aviv and Washington. Such a candidate also could not aspire to a second term in office. Amr Moussa possesses all these qualifications, and he may be the ideal choice for the conspirators if they fail to agree on any other individual over the next few weeks. Although Moussa is associated with the former regime, he is not as tainted as are the two other presidential hopefuls from that regime, Shafik and Suleiman. Moussa's connection with the old regime could also be used as a whip to keep him in line should he attempt to stray from the agreement with the SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood that put him into office. The Salafis and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya would also approve of the choice of Moussa in exchange for a number of concessions, such as ministerial positions in the next government or control over certain government agencies. The second scenario would come into play in the event that the Salafis reject the SCAF-Muslim Brotherhood candidate and rally instead behind their candidate, Hazem Abu Ismail. In taking this route, the Salafis would be gambling that Abu Ismail's popularity and the growth of the Salafist tide in Egyptian society would be sufficient to sweep their candidate into power. However, they would also be risking a clash with the Muslim Brotherhood, which does not want an Islamist president, or, if the president must be Islamist, wants a candidate skilful enough to handle both domestic and foreign policy. On these criteria, Abu Ismail does not quite meet the mark. In the third scenario, the SCAF would manage to persuade the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis to support El-Awwa. The latter is not a member of an Islamist organisation, though he was associated with one of the Muslim Brotherhood's Islamist rivals, the Wasat Party. At the same time, he is a pragmatist par excellence, and he would probably agree to whatever conditions the SCAF, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis set in order to gain the presidency. He is also able to address the large conservative bloc in Egyptian society. What may throw a spanner into the works and put paid to any idea of a "consensual president" is if the revolutionary forces back Abul-Fotouh for president. It is not just that the revolutionaries have no other alternative after Mohamed El-Baradei withdrew from the race, for under the present circumstances Abul-Fotouh is an ideal candidate for them in many ways. He has an irreproachable record of anti-regime activism under both the Sadat and Mubarak regimes, and although a member of the Muslim Brotherhood for a while, he managed to preserve his independence and was a forthright advocate of revolutionary and reformist convictions. These were the reasons he left the Muslim Brotherhood. Abul-Fotouh also possesses the charisma that El-Baradei lacks, and he has the ability to address all sectors of Egyptian society. He also has the ability to address the international community and the West, in particular, by means of an enlightened, reformist discourse similar to that of Turkey's Justice and Development Party. Finally, he communicates well with the revolutionary forces, and he has considerable appeal to many adherents of the moderate Islamist movement. Nevertheless, if Abul-Fotouh is to succeed in his bid for the presidency, he and his supporters will have an uphill battle before them, and they will need to work very hard to bring the silent majority to the polls to support them. They will also have to be on their guard against the ruses of the conventional forces that do not want a revolutionary president who could challenge their hold over the state and society. * The writer is a researcher at School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University.
