Much like a marathon, the race for the presidential seat in Egypt has started. Indeed, candidacy applications have begun to be presented, and the competitors have started running towards the high-ranking post. The course of the race is not only long, but also unprepared, or even “open to circulation”. Indeed, it is like an obstacle course, and candidates will have to jump over one obstacle after another to continue running, then again over further obstacles, until they can reach the end of the race and find out whether their efforts resulted in winning the seat, or whether their achievement has been limited to merely reaching the finish line, and gaining only the privilege of having tried. Regardless of the capabilities of every candidate, which qualify them to govern a country the size of Egypt, the start of the race has shown that some of them do not in the first place have the capability to meet the requirements of such a race, despite the uproar they have caused over the past few months. As one such requirement is to secure 30 thousand powers of attorney from Egyptian citizens, they have begun to solicit powers of attorney, and have organized campaigns not for the purpose of publicizing their presidential bid, promoting their programs, plans and views for resolving Egypt's problems and predicaments, or changing the lives of Egyptian citizens for the better, but rather to urge citizens to donate their “powers of attorney”. Others have thrown themselves in the embrace of existing political parties, in hopes of gaining their approval in order to avoid the issue of the powers of attorney, since every political party with one member in Parliament has the right to enter a candidate into the presidential race. There are also candidates who have been serenading Members of Parliament, with the intent of gaining the support of 30 MPs, which is their third option if they fail to collect powers of attorney or to represent political parties present in Parliament. The obstacle of the powers of attorney is hindering some candidates and revealing the extent of their “varnish”, despite the “varnishing” campaigns that have been devoted to them on satellite television shows. We are still at this stage, and those who overcome it will face other obstacles after it, among them of course that of gathering financial support to spend on their electoral campaign. And despite the fact that the judicial committee supervising the elections has set the sum of twenty million Egyptian Pounds as the maximum amount candidates can spend on their promotional campaign, in addition to placing restrictions on the size of donations that can be collected, deceptively eluding these decisions is not only likely, but is in fact a prevalent trend, as candidates have a ready justification if they are asked: they spend within the limits decreed by the committee, while all other publicity costs have been taken over and spent on by their fans and supporters! Candidates may believe that they have overcome a major obstacle by having reached an agreement with the leaders of a political party, group or movement to support them, but they will be surprised to find the youth of the party, group or movement rejecting them, opposing their own leaders, pressuring them and forcing them to change their decision and turn to supporting a different candidate. Candidates may rely on particular voting blocs, and believe that they have at least secured the votes of its members, and then be surprised that someone else has leapt to the forefront and declared their candidacy, gaining votes from the same bloc. Thus the former candidate would not only have lost the votes of the members and supporters of the party, group or movement in question, but also seen their relative weight in the overall race undermined. They would subsequently reconsider their strategy and seek out a different bloc to support them, only to discover that it is too late. But the most difficult obstacle is the one connected to the campaigns waged by competing candidates against one another. Indeed, it is most likely that every candidate who manages to gain the approval of any political or popular group will face harsh reactions from the other candidates. And as soon as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Liberals, the Leftists or a youth coalition announce their support for a candidate, the remaining candidates will begin to attack them and the group that supports them, despite the fact that almost all the candidates would have preceded “our good friend” in attempting to gain approval… and votes! It is true that some of the obstacles are being set up in secret, but most of them are well-known and made public in broad daylight– most prominent being the history of each candidate, the role they played in the Revolution and everything they have said since the day they learned to speak… in addition of course to their connection to the former regime… or to the one that preceded it!
