The Egyptian presidential race is about to begin soon as the military counsel governing the country in the transitional period announced that it will deliver the power to the elected president on the first of July 2012.
Currently government real estate offices are open for citizens who wish to make delegations to presidential candidates as the constitutional amendments requires that any candidate would have at least 30,000 delegations from citizens or 30 delegations from members of the parliament or to be a member of a party which has at least one member in the parliament in order to be considered a candidate and join the race.
So far over 350 people submitted for the judicial committee in order to be candidates for the presidential elections and the committee will wait for them to deliver the delegations in order to be considered a legal candidate.
From those 350 rise some names that are most likely to win the race
1-Abdel Munem Abul-Futooh
2-Hazem Salah Abu Esmail
3-Hamdeen Sabahy
4-Muhammad Selim El-Awa
5-Hesham El-Bastaweesy
6-Amr Mousa
7-Ahmad Shafeeq
1-Abdel Munem Abul-Futooh
Abul-Futooh was a member of the Muslim Brothers group Shura Counsel for most of his life and his membership was terminated by the group on the basis that the group announced they will not have anyone belonging to them run for presidency which was opposed by Abul-Futooh who announced repeatedly that he will run for presidency and started a campaign on the streets and social websites.
Abul-Futooh is a physician with long history of political work as he was the secretary general of the union of the Arab Doctors which had many contributions in relieving the pain of people of Gaza and other states in crises.
Abul-Futooh was born on the 15th of October 1951 in Cairo and was a successful student during his academic life and was banned from being a university professor because of his political activity which led him to be arrested many times. but that did not stop him from continuing the academic road and he got the master degree in hospital management.
He is also known for his debate with former president Sadat when he was a member of the students union in Cairo university and he was arrested in Sadat days because of his opposition to the Camp David agreement with Israel.
He was also arrested in the days of Mubarak for his opposition activities related to the Muslim Brothers movement and a military court sentenced him for 5 years in jail.
Abul-Futoh is known to be an open person who calls for acceptance of others and the differences between humans which gives him popularity among the liberals in Egypt and makes him an important candidate for freedom seeking people
2-Hazem Salah Abu Esmail
Abu Esmail is a lawyer who became famous after the revolution for opposing the military rule in Egypt and the crimes committed by the SCAF (Supreme Counsel of Armed Forces) against the youth participating in the revolution. He has a history of opposing the Mubarak regime and tried to be a member of the Egyptian parliament and failed due to the falsification of elections that was a wide spread practice by Mubarak government and police. Abu Esmail has a conservative Islamic mentality and background and says that he will work to establish the Sharia in Egypt.
Abu Esmail is also a known Islamic preacher who has many social and economic studies for more than 25 years and has many activities in helping the poor and disabled and had experience with custom law. He participated as an attorney in many high profile cases including defending the Muslim Brothers group members in the military courts of Mubarak.
He participated as an outsider in the creation of the programs of many liberal and left parties like Alwafd liberal Party and Altagamo left party and made a master degree in the constitutional law entitled “The right of the people to resist unjust governments from the Islamic point of view“.
Abu Esmail promises that he has a program to establish the new Egypt based on equality and justice and has economical programs that will levitate the economy of Egypt and reduce the unemployment levels.
3-Hamdeen Sabahy
Hamdeen Sabahy is an Egyptian politician who has been for long time in the opposition. He is the former leader of AL-Karama political party and the editor in chief of Al-Karama newspaper. He has a long history of struggling with authority for social justice and the rights of ordinary Egyptians and he is affected by the ideology of the former president Nasser which is socialism.Hamdeen was arrested in the events of 17 and 18 of January 1979 which is known as the Egyptian uprising against the president Sadat.
He was arrested also many times in the days of Mubarak including one time in which he was participating in a protest of farmers against the law which determines the relationship between the owners of the land and the farmers which was in favor of the owners and made many farmers homeless and jobless. He was also arrested in 2003 while he was a member of the parliament when he lead protests against the Mubarak regime because of its approval of the invasion of Iraq and its cooperation with the USA in that matter.
In 2005 parliament elections the people of his electoral area gave a great example of determination when they stood to defend the election boxes against the Mubarak thugs and police who were determined to fake it and change the result. This resulted in the killing of the martyr “Gomaa Al Zeftawy” and the injury of other citizens and because of their bravery Hamdeen was announced the member of the parliament for their district.
4-Muhammad Selim El-Awa
El- Awa is an Islamic thinker who was born on the 22 of December 1942. He is the former president of the international union of the Islamic scholars. He is also a legalistic expert and he is the head of “Egypt Dialog Association Association”. He is a moderate Islamic thinker who calls for dialog between the Muslims and the west and also between Muslims and Christians in Egypt and world wide.
El- Awa obtained a PHD in philosophy of comparative law and has many articles in many journals and was the delegate of the DA and also a professor of law in many Arab universities. He also wrote many books on politics and law and was awarded with Ajman international character award in 2000.
5-Hesham El-Bastaweesy
El-Bastaweesy is an Egyptian Judge and the delegate of the head of the Court of Cassation. In 1992 El-Bastaweesy lead the first strike of the Egyptian Judges protesting the dismissal of two judges and they refused to break the strike till the two judges were returned and the government accepted the the conditions of the judges.
In 2003 he was a member of the court that decided that the elections in which Zakaria Azmy the wing man of Mubarak won was not legal because of the falsification and manipulation of the boxes and votes that was carried on by the police and since then El-Bastaweesy is considered an enemy of the regime that they made sure he was not there in anything important t to the regime e.g. elections beside many attempts to charge him with many charges by the regime and trying to kidnap him from one strike of the Judge Clup in which they held campaigns against the regime and also threatening him and his family and spying on him and planting microphones in his house.
6-Amr Mousa
Amr Mousa was the minister of foreign affairs of Mubarak regime for 20 years starting 1991 to 2001 where he was selected to be the secretary general if the Arab league. Mousa has some popularity among ordinary Egyptians because of his charisma and the speeches he used to give about the rights of Palestine but because of his long service and relationship with Mubarak he is considered one of the flees of the regime who threaten to overthrow the revolution if they win the presidency.
7-Ahmad Shafeeq
Shafeeq was a colleague of Mubarak and his personal friend and he was the minister of aviation of Egypt for many years. He was popular among Egyptians before the revolution because of his management success in the ministry of aviation that made some Egyptians ask Mubarak for Shafeeq to be the successor of him or his delegate which was denied by Mubarak because he wanted to give it to his son. During the revolution Shafeeq was selected by Mubarak for be the prime minister just few days after the beginning if the revolution and during his time many Egyptian were killed by the police forces and the thugs in what is known as the Camel Battle which makes Shafeeq him self responsible for it and some speculations says that he actually approved it. After the revolution some people who work with Shafeeq in the ministry of Aviation claimed that they have evidences of financial corruption of Shafeeq during his ministry. Shafeeq does not believe in the revolution an in fact he see it as just uprising that can be dealt with minimal changes.
