Who will Egypt's Copts vote for in the forthcoming presidential elections, asks Sameh Fawzi The Coptic Orthodox Church is maintaining a stand of careful neutrality towards presidential candidates. When asked which candidate in Egypt's forthcoming presidential elections Egypt's Copts should vote for, Metropolitan Bakhomious, acting patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, said that the Church "stood at an equal distance" from all 13 presidential candidates and did not back any of them. "Christians have all rights to elect whoever they believe will best promote the interests of the nation," says Bishop Moussa, head of the church's youth wing. It is a position echoed by other senior Coptic clerics. With procedures for the selection of a new pope of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church now underway, it seems that the Church's top leaders would rather not get involved in the presidential elections. If the Copts were to support a specific candidate, and he were then to lose, their interests could be affected. Possibly for this reason, Coptic bishops have expressed fears about the Church calling for Copts to vote for any particular candidate. Although the church has been keen to stress its neutrality over the elections, many analysts expect that come the poll a "block" Coptic vote will emerge, with many of Egypt's Christians choosing the same candidate. In the first parliamentary election after 25 January Revolution lists of candidates, many belonging to the Egyptian Front, were rumoured to have been circulated within the Coptic Church. This step, conducted for the first time in such a flagrant manner, was defended by Bishop Paul, bishop of Tanta, as a "legitimate" one and one that was "in line with the aspirations of Christians to support candidates who, regardless of religion, advocate the civil agenda in Egypt." Copt-supported party or coalition lists included Muslim candidates, chosen after study of their strengths in different constituencies. However, the Church's intervention in the elections by indicating the candidates it supported was criticised by Egypt's Islamists and by some Coptic candidates running in the elections who had expected to get the support of their fellow Copts. Those who spoke out against the Church's interference with the Coptic vote did not express the same criticisms of the Islamist and Salafi groups that relied on "religious propaganda" to gain Muslim votes in the constitutional referendum of March 2011 and in the parliamentary elections at the end of last year. In the forthcoming presidential elections, battle lines have been drawn between the Islamists and the secularists, with some commentators saying that the Copts will not vote for an Islamist candidate. However, according to Sherif Dous, a Coptic activist, some Copts may vote for Islamist candidate Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh. "Some Coptic businesspeople support Abul-Fotouh's campaign, but don't want to be seen to be aligning themselves with him in public," Dous said. Yet, others expect the opposite. If Abul-Fotouh continues to gain the support of the Muslim Brotherhood and to enjoy support from the Salafi groups, Copts may vote for either Amr Moussa or Ahmed Shafik instead, despite the fact that both are seen as being associated with the former regime. "Amr Moussa is a suitable candidate to counter-balance the Islamist-dominated parliament," one Coptic intellectual said. Fear of the Islamists may drive them to vote for Moussa or Shafik, he added, though this could also be a major motive for voting among Muslims as well. Last Sunday, a number of Coptic activists released a statement calling for 10 "guiding principles" to be put in place for the election of the new president. He should not have a "religious background", they said, and he should not support "Arab nationalism" either, stands that may reflect the influence of Coptic activists in the Diaspora. In the first round of the elections, the Coptic vote may be scattered across a number of candidates, primarily secularist or apparently secularist, ones, such as Moussa, Shafik and Hamdeen Sabahi. Some Coptic ballots may be cast in favour of Abul-Fotouh. In the second round of the elections, Copts will favour the secularist candidate, particularly if his rival is an Islamist. Yet, the Copts, though probably on the whole favouring secularist candidates, refuse to be seen as a monolithic group. Egypt's Copts are economically, politically and socially diverse, and they should not be seen as making up a particular voting bloc, a statement by a group of Coptic intellectuals and activists said. The polarising atmosphere expected to prevail in the presidential elections will influence Coptic decisions, however. Should the elections be seen as a choice between an Islamist and a secularist candidate, many Egyptians, including many Copts, will support the candidate perceived to be secularist. The Copts, as a minority group, may also prefer to support a candidate who has the support of the incumbent government, in this case the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). Some commentators say that the SCAF has a preferred candidate, possibly Amr Moussa, though this is dismissed by others. If the SCAF has no preferred candidate in the presidential elections, Egypt's Copts will likely vote for the candidate seen as being most committed to a civil state and human rights agenda. Egypt's Copts lack a coherent political elite, and the Church has been reluctant to endorse any particular candidate, leaving local dynamics in each governorate to direct Copts in making their choices. The Islamists have made few efforts to reach out to the Copts, unlike other candidates like Moussa, Shafik, Khaled Ali and Sabahi. If local Church officials endorse particular candidates, these may gain Coptic votes, even if national Coptic politicians, businesspeople and intellectuals cannot be entirely taken out of the picture. While Moussa has promised to deal with various problems affecting the Coptic community, such as the building and repair of churches and political under-representation, Abul-Fotouh may yet surprise in a statement aimed at the Coptic community next week.
