Posters

Battle of the posters

07.02.12

Posters have appeared in the streets of Cairo, Giza and Alexandria bearing the photograph of Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and Egypt's de facto ruler, and emblazoned with the legend "a popular demand that Tantawi run for president".

The posters are the work of the newly formed Stability First Coalition, which posted a statement on its Facebook page insisting "it is time to confess that Tantawi is the only fit candidate for president, the only one who can steer us to stability."

Egypt, the statement continued, "needs someone who has long experience in politics and in the army to establish a democratic state". It did not explain how experience in Egypt's profoundly non-democratic politics of the last three decades, or of the army, which no one has ever claimed to be democratic, constitutes valid qualifications to nurture a political plural state.

"We believe Tantawi is the best candidate" said the coalition's general coordinator, lawyer Mahmoud Attia. He said the campaign was due to be in September but was postponed due to various violent clashes such as those on 9 October in which 27 Egyptian Copts were killed.

Source: Ahram Online