The remaining batch of presidential candidates is provoking as much despondency as enthusiasm, reports Mohamed Abdel-Baky One year ago and anyone from the old regime would have been seen as too tainted to even contemplate running for the presidency. But then a year ago and the Muslim Brotherhood was promising whoever would listen that it wouldn't be fielding a candidate. And look what happened. Mubarak's last prime minister, Ahmed Shafik, is standing, competing in a race that includes Mohamed Mursi, head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party. Among the 13 candidates who remain in the race are Amr Moussa, Mubarak's long serving foreign minister, moderate Islamist Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh and Karama Party leader Hamdeen Sabahi. Among the 10 candidates disqualified by the Presidential Elections Committee (PEC) are Salafist preacher Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, Mubarak's vice president Omar Suleiman and Muslim Brotherhood deputy supreme guide Khairat El-Shater. Political analyst and MP Amr El-Shobaki believes that the divisions that have rent the political scene over the past year have made it impossible for a candidate with a revolutionary platform to win Egypt's highest office. Nothing could be further than the tumultuous scenes that greeted the announcement that Mubarak was stepping down: then, says El-Shobaki, Egyptians were craving a president filled with fervour for change. While El-Shobaki holds out hope for either Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh or Hamdeen Sabahi -- they have both "revolutionary spirit and honesty" he says, other commentators say the list of presidential candidates is nothing short of a betrayal of the ideals espoused by the young activists that started the revolution. "There isn't a single candidate in the list either qualified or deserving to be considered revolutionary, it is a farce," says writer Mona El-Tahawi. In an op-ed in The Guardian she wrote that the revolution must continue, not just to end military rule but also to provide alternatives to the best of the worst scenario voters now face. The revolutionary groups that orchestrated the 25 January Revolution leading to the end of Mubarak's three-decade rule have been on the sidelines of the presidential race since the withdrawal of Mohamed El-Baradei in January this year. Recently, though, support has been growing among members of youth movements and some secular forces for the candidacies of both Sabahi and Abul-Fotouh. Both are viewed as having been stalwart in their opposition to the Mubarak regime and neither has entered into dialogue or with the military council. But SCAF's campaign of vilification against the revolutionary youth movements, conducted by the authorities' cheer leaders in the state-owned media, has taken its toll and many ordinary voters now blame the young activists who spearheaded the toppling of Mubarak for the subsequent unrest and deteriorating economic conditions. A recent poll by Al-Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies showed Moussa in first place, followed by Abu Ismail -- now disqualified -- and Shafik, whose own candidacy hangs in the balance. "We want an end to the mess. We have to elect someone with experience of running the state. We've had enough of the Islamists and those who call themselves revolutionaries," says 38-year-old engineer Mohamed Shaaban. And if the results of opinion polls are anything to go by, he is far from alone in his views. Psychologist Ahmed Okasha argues that the excessive expectations that came in the wake of Mubarak's overthrow made the souring of the revolutionary mood inevitable. Things would have been different if presidential elections had been held in two months that followed Mubarak's fall. Then, says Okasha, a revolutionary candidate could have easily swept the board. He warns, however, that as strong as the current feeling is in support of a moderate candidate, it could easily change. It is a warning that Nasser Amin, head of the Arab Centre for independent law and judiciary, echoes. The absence of a clear roadmap for the transitional period, says Amin, has served to muddy the electoral waters, leaving the public confused. But should the incoming president fail to take the kind of radical policy decisions needed to improve the situation, Egypt could well find itself facing a second wave of revolutionary unrest.
