A novel idea in Egypt: Presidential candidates

AGA, Egypt — After an unfriendly journalist was tossed off, Amr Moussa’s campaign bus headed north to the Nile Delta, where barefoot boys and peasants greeted him with horns, drums and two dancing horses.

Moussa arrived as both novelty and sensation, a front-runner in Egypt’s first freely contested presidential election. The former diplomat who once negotiated with world leaders walked roads strewn with hay and spotted with manure, giving speeches on dignity and chatting with elders near herds of sheep and sheds full of broken farm equipment.

Unsure of the precise nature of presidential powers, field hands and factory men gambled on a few requests, some of them written on scraps of paper: a job for a son, electricity, a building permit, running water. Slogans filled the air, candy was thrown, and the bus slipped away behind a truck warbling music.

“It’s a strange feeling to see a presidential candidate,” said Mohamed Shoeb, a sanitation worker waiting on a corner for a glimpse of Moussa. “I can’t really describe it.”

The bus rolled on. Mothers held up babies, and little girls, dressed in sequins and taffeta, stood smiling in the dust, unsure exactly what was happening. An aging farmer was lifted onto shoulders and a laborer carrying a bag of cement mix and a sifter followed banners and ululating women. Butchers clapped. A doubter on a bicycle with a crooked wheel asked:

“Who’s here?”

“Moussa.”

He scoffed and pedaled away.

But much of this nation, which has veered from uprising to uncertainty over the last 15 months, is fascinated by the spectacle of candidates traveling along the northern Mediterranean coast and into the troubled deserts of the south. For decades, deposed President Hosni Mubarak was the only real choice. But on May 23 the ballot will hold 13 names, including Islamists, liberals and a judge.

With his bus trip to the delta last week, Moussa ventured into a political stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose candidate, Mohamed Morsi, has dropped to third in the polls. Moussa’s secular message speaks to concerns that Islamists, who have unsteadily controlled parliament, might dominate the government. He touts his experience as a foreign minister and chief of the Arab League.

Many Egyptians believe Moussa, 75, can restore stability, increase foreign investment and reverse Egypt’s loss of stature in the region. He likes to speak of reviving the grandeur of the distant past. His critics view him as an establishment candidate who served Mubarak more than a decade ago and who fails to embody the revolutionary ideals that helped inspire the”Arab Spring.”

Clansmen in the delta don’t fret much over ideals. Moussa’s bus — his name taped on the side — tangled traffic and caught the eyes of camels and passing schoolgirls in crisp white hijabs. Faces filled balconies, shutters swung open; men gathered in the shade near a nut shop as Moussa was hurried down an alley and up flights of stairs to meet with political operatives skilled at delivering rural allegiances.

Students waited with placards in the street, and police, more curious than vigilant, sauntered in the sun along market stalls. It felt like a carnival without rides and, although men and women were swinging scythes in the fields in rhythms unchanged for centuries, there was a sense, however fleeting, that a new era had arrived with the gray-haired man and his entourage from the capital.

“The people don’t quite understand the political process,” said a campaign strategist, who asked not to be named. A roundish raconteur in a tie and suspenders, he has connections across the delta and is whispered to a lot.

“Their minds are not set yet to a presidential election. They think a president solves personal problems. This factory manager wants Moussa to come and talk to his workers. People hand me notes.... We don’t sleep. I haven’t slept for more than a year.”

Moussa’s not a charismatic speaker, yet he’s attuned to his audience. “The Egyptian peasant is the backbone of this country,” he told a rally in the delta, where the soil is fertile but poverty is high. “We need to bring justice back to the peasant.”

Such rhetoric resonates in this region of brick kilns and fields that stretch to Alexandria. The delta has often felt orphaned, the nation’s heartland but also a discomfiting reminder of failed agricultural policies. In village after village, houses stand unfinished, waiting for husbands and sons to return from other countries with laborers’ wages in their pockets.

“Moussa is the only one who can save Egypt,” Shoeb said. “We lack security. We lack jobs. We have little. Our young men sneak to Italy on broken boats to look for work.”

The frustration here echoes in the alleys of Cairo and in the Nubian villages of the south. The revolution has yet to touch the lives of most Egyptians, and when it has, such as with last year’s parliamentary election, anger and disappointment have tinged the sense of progress. Nearly 40% of voters said they were undecided on a candidate.

“Moussa doesn’t belong to an Islamist current,” said Mohamed Ibrahim, who works in a clothing factory. “The Islamists won parliament, but they’ve done nothing. We don’t want to repeat that. People here can’t finance their farms, but Moussa has promised to do that.”

His voice grainy from days of speeches, the candidate, dressed in a slate-blue blazer and sunglasses, strolled within a pocket of men that in each town led him to a stage shaded by quilts. He warned against protesters who “threaten the security” of Egypt and of ultraconservative Islamists “who want to keep us framed in poverty and ignorance.”

Egypt cannot “remain as it is,” Moussa said. “I can’t understand how a country of Egypt’s caliber should face problems like the price of a bread loaf and shortages in propane gas cylinders [used for cooking]. We have to be fully aware of the wrong that has happened so we can fix it.”

At another stop, Moussa waited with a diplomat’s patience, his speech delayed by the call to prayer and then interrupted by an erratic microphone. Men sweated and chanted during the lull; a young technician rigged fraying wires as lights flashed and the sound system whined.

“Moussa! Moussa!” supporters yelled from front rows.

Others called out from the back. One excited man had to be calmed by his neighbors. Moussa, a crush of elders surrounding him, melted into the din as a man scolded the crowd.

“This is a great opportunity for our town to have a candidate visit,” he said. “Sit down and listen to what he has to say.”

Feet shuffled and chairs filled with anxious men. The microphone was handed to Moussa, who rose on the stage and slipped back into the groove: “A lot of places I go the microphones don’t work so well,” he said. “We’ll add that to all the other problems Egypt is struggling with.”

When the speech was over, a horn player and a drummer stirred sleeping cats. Moussa abandoned the bus — all cigarette smoke and dying after-shave — for an SUV. He drove off into the sunlight while the bus, aglow with cellphones and laptops of journalists and campaign staff, wandered, vaguely lost, through the fields.

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

Amro Hassan of The Times’ Cairo bureau contributed to this report.