Doaa El-Bey looks at the tensions around the Egyptian presidential race and the constituent assembly Newspapers and writers followed the presidential race which witnessed last minute surprises like the inclusion of Mohamed Mursi, the head of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), and Omar Suleiman, the vice president of Hosni Mubarak, together with the ongoing problem of the constituent assembly. Al-Shorouk banner on Tuesday had 'The crisis of those who withdrew from the constituent assembly reached a deadlock'. Al-Tahrir on Monday described Suleiman as 'The candidate of the last 25 minutes' and Al-Akhbar read 'The war of statements and counter statements is escalating'. Al-Ahram banner on Sunday had 'FJP fielded Mursi for fear of disqualifying El-Shater,' Al-Masry Al-Youm banner noted 'The presidential marathon took off with 23 candidates' and Al-Wafd which described Suleiman as the ambiguous man stated in its Sunday banner that he caused confusion in the presidential race. Tareq El-Shennawi wondered how the prime minister and the vice president selected by Mubarak are running for presidential elections. "Mubarak is still ruling Egypt with a remote control. Why was the revolution launched in the first place? To select his followers to rule us?" he asked in the independent daily Al-Tahrir. In an attempt to draw a picture for the present situation in Egypt, he wrote that Mubarak drew a well defined plan to leave people "to pass time" as he used to say. He allowed the people to spend more than a year watching aired trials in which he waved to the people from his bed and his two sons appeared confident of their acquittal. Amr Mousa, he continued, tried to play the role of the consensual president, but the ruling military council preferred Mansour Hassan who soon withdrew from the race to be replaced by Suleiman. El-Shennawi considered Suleiman as an important and vital part of the picture who has never acknowledged the revolution and repeatedly called on the youth to return to their homes. He did not rule out an agreement between Suleiman and the MB through which they would support Suleiman to become president in return for few ministerial portfolios. In that case, the writer concluded, we would return to square one before 11 February. The only difference, Mubarak would be honoured as the launcher of the 25 January revolution. Marwa Maziad compared the situation in Egypt to a game of chess in which one party wins because it thinks in a strategic way and the other loses because, under pressure, it adopts short term tactics. And that is what happened to the MB. The MB, she explained, were pressured to field El-Shater to face the competition from Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh whom it describes as independent and Hazem Salah Abu Ismail who belongs to the competing Salafist trend. That step which the writer described as uncalculated was followed by fielding Mohamed Mursi. "The trap that both the MB and the Salafis fell into reflected the supremacy of the party which is most capable to play the political game: the military council," she wrote in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm. The norm in the relation between the civil and the military in various countries is to keep the latter away from politics; otherwise, rifts among political parties would be created. The military, she elaborated, creates a lack of confidence in the political process, then presents itself as the "shelter" from the other political parties who adopt short term tactics rather than long term strategic planning. In this way, the real authority would stay with the military council either as a mediator between the conflicting parties or as a real ruler after a coup in the worst case scenario. In Egypt, she added, Suleiman could be presented as the more advanced player who would say "checkmate" to FJP or the shaken party who would lose the game. Is that what is really happening, she wandered at the end of her article. Abla El-Rweini described the presidential race as a scene that Egypt has never witnessed before. She wrote that although the door for applying for the presidential race was closed, the door for surprises and comic scenes is still wide open. The scenes that we witnessed in that race, she added, outstripped the imagination of script writers. Abu Ismail is lying regarding the nationality of his mum; the MB fielded Mursi in case El-Shater was disqualified. However, the most dangerous storm in the race, according to El-Rweini, was the participation of Omar Suleiman and the fear that he would reproduce Mubarak's regime. But the drama of the presidential race, she added, is full of other surprises like the people's participation in a show of power in Abu Ismail and El-Shater's campaigns, besides the security parades in Suleiman's campaign. Emad Ghoneim wrote that joining the presidential race at the last minute is like riding the train while it is on the move, and he was taught that wise people do not do this. As for the presidential elections, he described it as a vote for persons in the absence of thoughts, principles or practical programmes that allow people to judge and choose. All candidates are respectable. Nobody can cast doubt, he explained, in the efficiency of Suleiman but he represents a return to the previous regime in one way or another. As for El-Shater or Mursi, the unclear stands of the MB cause worry among liberals and Copts from both candidates. Regarding Abu Ismail, Ghoneim added, he is a kind man, but his kindness is not enough. Besides his supporters are not willing to give up even if he is disqualified. "Voters are gathering around persons and not programmes. That could lead to divisions and possible disobedience and violence," he wrote in the official daily Al-Ahram. The writer expressed his fear that the support for persons would lead some parties to reject the results of the election if it comes up with a person that is not acceptable to them. He suggested that the presidential election could be postponed and the military council could select a presidential council that run that country until the situation is more stable. He also proposed forming a new government that would be responsible for organising the elections whose results would be accepted by all parties.
