AS IN the 1001 Nights, Egypt’s presidential race features tales within tales and plots within devilish plots. Predictably, suspense reigns over which of the 23 registered candidates will win. But just now it is not clear if any will even survive the first lap.
The insurgent campaign of Hazem Abu Ismail, a rotund lawyer-turned-preacher whose jolly demeanour belies a radical Islamist agenda, is foundering on news that his late mother may have been—horrors!—an American citizen. This would bar him from running under Egypt’s strict nationality rules.
Mr Abu Ismail loves nothing more than to rail against America, and his fellow Islamists have enthusiastically backed the nationality rules. The only consolation is that they work against his rivals, too. Abdel Moneim Abolfotoh, a more moderate Islamist, is accused of holding a Qatari passport. The father of Muhammad Selim al-Awa, another Islamist would-be president, is rumoured to be Syrian. The current poll leader, Amr Moussa, who is running as a nationalist and is admired for his Israel-bashing while foreign minister, is alleged to have had a Jewish mother who was also a Mossad spy.
These challenges may not stand, but other candidates face bigger hurdles. Khairat al-Shater, a Muslim Brotherhood strongman, could be barred under a provision that bans ex-convicts from running for political office, even if they received pardons and were jailed for political crimes. The same rule has already blocked another former political prisoner, and the Brothers take the threat seriously enough to have registered a backup candidate.
They have also used their parliamentary strength to mount a counterthrust, rushing to enact a law that would ban officials from the ousted regime of Hosni Mubarak from politics. Among other things, this would rule out the grim former spy chief, Omar Suleiman, whose late entry to the race has raised howls of outrage from revolutionaries.
A final plot twist has come with a court decision that has stopped (pending appeal) the work of a recently appointed assembly charged with writing a new constitution. This makes it almost certain that the new constitution will be finalised only after a new president is chosen. The tragicomedy is sure to go on.
