Those following the presidential election campaign in Egypt note the rising harshness of “verbal exchanges” among the candidates' supporters, a natural development in a race for people's votes, yet one that has reached the point where the supporters of every candidate are now focused on hurling abuse at the remaining candidates, to a degree that exceeds their care to promote their own candidate by presenting the latter's programs, ideas, stances, principles or views for resolving the country's problems. And over the next few days, mutually exchanged campaigns will grow increasingly acute, harsh and violent, because the race has turned into a struggle to reach the presidential seat. The Military Council in Egypt has only forty days to confirm the amendments to the law on the exercise of political rights recently ratified in parliament, also known as the “law to exclude the remnants of the former regime”, and the ratification of the military will have a tremendous impact on the presidential race. Indeed, this law would entail the exclusion of Air Marshal Ahmed Shafik, who did not have time to engage in judicial procedures to challenge the law, which contains elements suspected of being unconstitutional. However, if the Military Council were to ratify the draft law after next Thursday, the day on which the final list of candidates to the presidency will be announced, Shafik would then have gained legal status that cannot be taken away from him, and the law would have no impact on his participation in the race to the presidential seat. Then the interpretation will be that the military purposely delayed or procrastinated in order to allow “its own man” to stay in the race. The military has another choice, which is to refuse to ratify the law and send it back to the People's Assembly to be voted on, and to become law if it obtains the support of two thirds of the members of parliament, not half + one. And if the Military Council were to take such a step before Thursday, the parliament could hold an emergency session and adopt the law in order to oust Shafik. What matters is that the game of “cat-and-mouse” between the military and the parliament in general, and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, has been taking place for weeks on the background of the Muslim Brotherhood changing its stance on the presidential elections and nominating a candidate of its own, after it had announced that it would be abstaining from waging the competition and sufficing itself with the majority it had achieved in both houses of parliament – the People's Assembly and the Shura Council. Everyone is aware of the fact that the Brotherhood's stance in effect represents a response to pressures exerted on it by the military to force it to put a stop to its attacks against Doctor Kamal Ganzouri's government. This has also driven it to change its stances on the issue of the constitution, whether in terms of the standards of selection of the constitutive assembly or the articles of the constitution itself. But a group of the size and of the history of the Muslim Brotherhood has become skilled at dealing with the forces that influence the political scene, and it too has pressured the military through the parliament, the street (the square) or the media – just as it has done with the political forces competing against it, which in turn have engaged in the same behavior, whether towards the military or in confronting the Brotherhood. Yet it seems clear that the military has become more confident and is no longer prey to panic, fear and confusion at every new challenge or million-man march in Tahrir or other public squares. And despite escalation on the part of the Muslim Brotherhood towards the Military Council, the latter's reaction has become characterized by a calm demeanor and by moving forward with the roadmap it has drawn without making core changes – and it has been helped in this by the state of polarization between Islamists and secular forces. It is indeed such a state that has made some consider the fact that last week's million-man march went by without strong clashes between the forces participating in it to represent a major achievement. Moreover, the picture does not seem clear regarding the struggle between candidates to the presidency in its first phase, but most likely the final phase will take place between a candidate affiliated to the Islamist movement and another affiliated to secular forces. And this is when the predicament will take shape, as the Islamist candidate would count as a member of revolutionary forces, but secular forces might reject him, while the secular candidate might not be considered a revolutionary and might even be affiliated in one way or another to the former regime. Yet the latter would be competing against an Islamist rejected by secular forces, and thus Islamist forces would be faced with a predicament, one for which they will have to find solutions, because this will undoubtedly happen after all the cards have been shuffled.
