Regime survivor seizes the lead in the race for control of Egypt

With its ultra-modern offices, well-watered lawns and ornamental glass pyramid, Cairo's Smart Village business park is a gleaming reminder that not everything in President Hosni Mubarak's Egypt was bad.

Built as part of his vision to create a hi-tech, low-cost economy akin to India's, its success in attracting firms such as Microsoft and Vodafone also sowed the seeds of his downfall: the young, web-savvy workforce it has helped nurture are the very kind of people who led the "Facebook Revolution" that felled him last year.

It was, therefore, a fitting venue for a man who represents both the old Egypt and the new to come seeking votes in his attempt to become Mubarak's replacement. Amr Moussa, a former foreign minister in Mubarak's government, is the front-runner among 14 candidates for the May 23 presidential elections, hailed as the first truly free poll for a national leader in the country's 5,000-year history.

Taking to the podium in an air-conditioned auditorium, he spelt out the formidable workload for whoever gets the job, which, as head of the Arab world's biggest nation, will make them one of the most powerful people in the Middle East.

"When I look at a place like this, I feel secure about Egypt's future," said Moussa, whose smiling, bespectacled face is now emblazoned on billboards all over Egypt. "But 40% of Egyptians live below the poverty line, and 30 per cent are illiterate. Security isn't working, nor are health and education services."

As if to underline the shakiness of Egypt's infrastructure, the public address system then briefly cut out. "You see?" he joked. "Even the microphones aren't working here in Smart City."

A spritely, silver-haired 75 year-old, Moussa comes both highly recommended and roundly condemned by his lengthy service in Mubarak's government.

For some, his 40 years in public life, including a decade as chief diplomat of the Arab League, make him the ideal person to steer the country and the wider region through the uncertain years ahead. For others, especially the young who demonstrated in Cairo's Tahrir Square last year, no fulul - or "remnant" - of the past regime is acceptable, period. That he was one of the few relatively popular Mubarak-era ministers - so much so that his boss allegedly saw him as a threat - cuts no ice.

Right now, however, part of Moussa's appeal rests not on what he was, or may come to be, but on what he has never been. He is not, he reminds his audience, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement that alarmed secular Egyptians by taking 40 per cent of the seats in last year's parliamentary elections. Anxious not to be seen to be grabbing too much power, the group had previously pledged not to contest the presidency as well; in March, though, it changed its mind, and now has an official candidate and a former member is also the running. While both deny they will turn Egypt into an Iranian-style theocracy, opponents fear that too may be a broken promise.

"We either put Egypt on the right track, or we leave it to the mess of different religious interpretations that some candidates are pushing for," Moussa warned. "When those candidates take their masks off, they will all prove the same; they are trying to deceive people by being liberals and Islamists at once."

The main "masked" candidate on Moussa's mind is Abdel-Moneim Aboul-Fotouh, an ex-Brotherhood member who is now his chief rival for power. A medical doctor by profession, Aboul-Fotouh, 61, was once an ultra-conservative who backed the use of violence to establish an Islamic state. Today, though, he claims to be the champion of moderate Islam, and since breaking away from the Brotherhood last June he has attracted some of the liberal, secular voters Moussa covets.

A professed defender of the rights of women and the Christian minority, he has benefited from the failure of the myriad "Facebook" movements to provide a presidential candidate themselves (partly because the minimum age for presidential candidates is 40).

"I am a candidate for all Egyptians," he insists. "I am not, and will not be, representing the Muslim Brotherhood."

That may be so, say critics, but they doubt whether he would really be a bulwark against the demands of his ex-comrades who pack the parliament. Nor is the Brotherhood the only conservative group to which he might be in hock. Last month, its rival Islamists, the harder-line Salafist faction, also came out in support of Aboul-Fotouh after their candidate was disqualified on a technicality.

Consistent polling data in Egypt are hard to come by, but a survey of first-round voting intentions by Cairo's Al-Ahram Political Studies Centre put Moussa on 41.1%, with Mr Aboul-Fotouh on 27.3%. Ahmed Shafiq, a former prime minister and air force chief, got 11.9%, and Hamdeen Sabbahi, a former opposition MP and outspoken anti-American, got 7.4%.

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood's official candidate, Mohammed Morsi, trailed on 3.6 per cent, a victim not just of Aboul-Fotouh's splinter candidacy, but also of the new Islamist bloc's questionable performance in parliament so far. The 270-seat chamber, in which the Brotherhood has 105 seats and the Salafists have 45, has been widely criticised for obsessing over details of Islamic faith at the expense of more pressing issues. Subjected to particular ridicule was a bizarre debate on whether a man could legally have sex with his wife in the hours following her death, on the basis that they were remained married in the afterlife.

"They are talking about necrophilia when the country is in a shambles," scoffed Ali Abdelwahab, a hospital doctor drinking after work in a Cairo bar. As he did so, his mobile telephone rang, a colleague asking for advice on a friend injured in a shooting. "Shouldn't parliament be worrying about the insecurity, with people getting shot and robbed? A lot of Egyptians are losing faith in the Islamists already, and will probably just vote for Moussa, even if they don't like him that much."

Last week, Moussa and Aboul-Fotouh went head to head in a live televised presidential debate, the first in Egypt's history. In a heated discussion that lasted more than four hours on Thursday evening, the pair discussed everything from taxation to reform of Egypt's hated police service, Moussa casting himself as the man of stability, Fotouh a figure whom liberals, Islamists and other reformists could unite behind.

Assuming neither wins an outright majority, Moussa and Aboul-Fotouh will most likely go on to a second round of voting on June 16, when all eyes will be on whether Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, Egypt's interim military ruler, honours his pledge to hand over power.

Some believe that after a year in which he has become almost as much of a hate figure as Mubarak, the weary-looking 76-year-old commander will be only to happy to retire, but many are convinced otherwise. Only two weeks ago, 11 Salafists were killed by plain-clothes thugs while
demonstrating for the end of military rule, an attack which many said was the work of the generals.

So far, there has been no polling on who would receive most second-round votes in a run-off between Moussa and Abel-Fotouh. However, while Moussa does not necessarily draw the fevered crowds other candidates attract, he enjoys the support of much of Egypt's "silent majority", the millions who have never been near Tahrir Square, and prefer to keep their politics to themselves.

Nicknamed the "Sofa Party" by revolutionaries because they stay at home rather than demonstrate, they are arguably the biggest constituency of all. And they are well represented among the business elite of Smart Village, who fear that any radical government could undo the few solid accomplishments of Mubarak's crony capitalism.

"I worry that there will be a corporate witch-hunt just for the sake of it," said Hossam Salah, 36, a manager of a Smart Village firm. "Some Salafists have already talked about nationalising some of the firms represented here. There was corruption during the Mubarak regime, yes, but also economic growth that created jobs. There is no way I will vote for one of the Islamist parties, I am a Muslim, but religion should not be involved in government. Finding work and providing for your family, that's Islam, not growing a beard."

A year of instability has already taken its toll on the economy, he points out. Although tourism has recovered a little, construction on the final phase of Smart Village, for example, has ground to a halt.

Unfortunately, in an electorate with high illiteracy rates, no experience of democratic politics, and a burning sense of grievance, economic arguments do not necessarily win the day, admits Salah.

"People here have never had proper economic and social debate; there is no informed discussion, for example, of the relationship between tax and spending, like there is in Britain over the austerity measures," he said. "Candidates can say what they like; as long as they sound good, they'll get votes."

Proof of that can be found just down the road from Smart Village in the shanty town district of al-Saleba, where many residents have never even heard of Moussa or his rivals, despite the campaign.

Nor do they much care. Here, the Egypt of the future is not about high-speed broadband, but getting access - for the first time ever - to much more basic utilities such as water and electricity.

"I just want some respectable person to run the country," sighed Al Sayed Mohamed Ragab, 49, who lives in a shack with eight children and a flock of scrawny goats. "Who will I vote for? Whoever provides me with bread and water."