Opening shots
The one thing all presidential candidates are promising is change, report Dina Ezzat and Shaden Shehab
Yesterday saw the official launch of the campaigns for Egypt's first ever multi-candidate presidential elections. President Hosni Mubarak, Wafd leader Noaman Gomaa, Ghad leader Ayman Nour, together with seven other candidates, will spend the next three weeks desperately lobbying the public.
The 19-day electoral campaign, which will end 48 hours before election day on 7 September, kicked off with public speeches, newspaper advertisements and the sudden appearance of candidates on billboards.
Mubarak's campaign, which is expected to cost LE10 million, the maximum allowed under election regulations, is being coordinated by senior National Democratic Party (NDP) officials and a host of mass-media experts. The image they are anxious to project is that, after 24 years at the helm, the 77-year-old Mubarak is now embracing change. And with the image of a president with a new outlook comes the inevitable, new-look Mubarak. In an advertisement occupying the back page of yesterday's Al-Ahram the president was pictured in a smart but fashionable shirt and tie sitting at a desk on which is an elegant writing pad and that most essential of all corporate accessories, the Mont Blanc pen.
"Mubarak 2005: Leadership and crossing to the future" is the slogan beneath which the Mubarak campaign will be conducted.
And it was just this message, a history of strong leadership that has allowed a vision of the future to mature, that Mubarak carefully projected in his first speech of the campaign, delivered before an audience of NDP officials and supporters in Al-Azhar Park last night.
Mubarak promised "a programme that will solve our problems in a bold and creative manner, a programme based on commitment and not just promises... a programme that is clear and carefully costed..."
We are embarked, he said, "on a journey that will enable us to enjoy a better future... [though on that journey] we will face many threats to the security and stability of the nation... It is a crucial phase, and it requires more than promises or false slogans that gamble with the destiny of our people..."
The 30-minute speech in which Mubarak unveiled a series of constitutional reforms to further entrench democratic practices was broadcast live, not by state-run television but by Dream TV, a private Egyptian television channel. The speech also outlined ways in which unemployment, particularly among graduates, would be tackled and social and health care improved, and press freedoms guaranteed.
Mubarak said he would act to limit the prerogatives of the president, and of the executive, by granting greater authority to parliament.
Members of Mubarak's campaign team told Al-Ahram Weekly that the speech reflects the president's understanding of growing public demands for political reform. The president, they stress, understands that calls for democratisation have reached almost the same level as calls for improved living standards.
Among the constitutional amendments alluded to in the speech is a series of moves to consolidate judicial independence, including disbanding the Higher Judiciary Council and the Office of the Socialist Prosecutor, often criticised by human rights activists. Mubarak also proposed to amend laws regulating the performance of the judiciary -- a long standing demand of many judges.
Moreover, Mubarak hinted that the Ministry of Information -- often associated in the public's mind with the state sponsorship of news -- could be shut down and replaced with a new, more independent body that would regulate radio and TV and open the state-run media to contributions from the private sector. The speech also promised that women would receive a greater quota of seats in November's parliamentary elections, and promised a review of the current system of individual nomination with an eye to using collective lists in future parliamentary elections.
"The platform Mubarak proposed yesterday offers a vision for the future based on Mubarak's hopes for the nation and the nation's hopes for the president as voiced in several focus groups held during the past few weeks," said Mohamed Kamal, a member of Mubarak's campaign team.
Last night also saw the opening shots in the campaigns of Ayman Nour and Noaman Gomaa. While Nour opened his run for the presidency before an audience in his parliamentary constituency Bab Al-Shi'riya, Gomaa preferred to buy time on TV for the purpose. Beneath the slogan "Hope and change" Nour offered a two-year transitional period. The 41-year-old candidate promised to abolish the emergency law, end custodial sentences for publication offences, allow greater freedom for the establishment of newspapers and release political detainees before the end of the year. By 2006, he said, a new constitution would be ready to put before the public that will turn Egypt into a parliamentary republic. Moves to improve incomes, lower unemployment, fight corruption and reform education and health care were also promised.
The 71-year-old Gomaa raised the perhaps less than catchy slogan, "Be with me people and let us genuinely change Egypt". While his campaign seems to be striking the same note as Nour's, his initial strategy, at least, seems to be to rely heavily on TV broadcasts, though on Sunday Gomaa is scheduled to appear in his home town, Port Said, to outline his manifesto.
The other candidates -- Ahmed Sabahi (Al-Umma), Wahid El-Oqssori (Arab Socialist Egypt), Rifaat El-Agroudi (Al-Wifaq Al-Qawmi), Osama Shaltout (Takaful), Ibrahim Turk (Ittihadi), Fawzi Ghazal (Egypt 2000), and Mamdouh Qenawi (Al-Destouri) -- will launch their campaigns when they receive the LE500,000 granted by the government to parties fielding a candidate. Those candidates that could be contacted offered little in the way of policy statements, though all said they would be buying time on TV to state their platforms.
Caption: Let the contest commence: a massive billboard appears in downtown Cairo announcing the launch of the Mubarak 2005 campaign
C a p t i o n 2: Let the contest commence: a massive billboard appears in downtown Cairo announcing the launch of the Mubarak 2005 campaign
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/756/fr1.htm