A few days after the great event, I finally watched the first debate between Amr Moussa and Abd al-Moneim Abu al-Futuh. Here are my thoughts on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4r-x92f8D8&feature=g-u-u

It seemed to me that Moussa’s aggressive, jumpy and defensive tone in the first section reflected the fact that he is very much not used to being questioned in this manner and that he is at the end of the day a product of the Egyptian Republican system. His rhetoric even slipped on a couple of occasions in Mubarak-era arguments to sully the opposition, saying he opposed religious parties and questioning the politicization of syndicate. Those activities were a central plank in Brotherhood work during the Mubarak years and Abu al-Futuh’s charity work and time in prison form the core of his opposition credentials and nidal siyasi, or political struggle. He also criticised ongoing protests, a very fulool an-nizam, or regime-remnant position and suggested that loyalty to the Brotherhood trumps loyalty to Egypt (Brotherhood opponents in the UAE are using the same argument.

While deflecting the argument that he is a remnant of the previous regime, Moussa was clearly playing the continuity card. He said plainly that jilting all those associated with the past to start a new order afresh was a bad idea that Egypt had suffered from before, and therefore he would be happy to bring on board politicians, technocrats and others with the competence to serve the country. And yet, as was typical of both them, he still sought to keep a stake in the discourse of revolutionary change, describing the new era as a “second republic” and accusing Abu al-Futuh at one point of stealing that phrase.

Abu al-Futuh, on the other hand, gave the sense of being a product of a concensus-building syndicate tradition. He tried to make a virtue of being someone who could make deals with different political trends; he appeared calm for the most part and even slow to react to some of the attacks against him. Some have said he seemed “dumb” in comparison to Moussa, whose anger seems to have shocked others. But all his talk of Sharia and picking Moussa up on trying to water down the sense of Sharia in practice by using the vague “general principles” of Islamic Sharia as basis of legislation is bound to define him clearly as an Islamist, despite the friendly chameleonism. He also threw quickly in the rush to finish an answer as the beeps counted down that he may be an “Islamist” but is not a religious scholar himself; yet any ruler should have recourse to al-Azhar clerics, he said – the defining position of modern political Islam.

There’s a lot one can pick at with this TV debate. Like Mona al-Shazly’s riding suit. Or that with its rules and different sections, the debate show came off  at times like an entertainment show where Arab starlets are quizzed, prodded and embarrassed about sleights cited in media by and against them. There’s wasn’t so much really on the programmes their campaigns have put forward. But still it offered confirmation of what kind of men they are: one is offering you the better Egypt that some always hoped forlornly that Mubarak’s world could be if only people were nicer, politics was open and the corruption cleaned up, the other thinks it was a revolution that sanctioned a new Islamist order. Moussa vs Abu al-Futuh feels a lot like Mubarak vs the Brotherhood, and you can list most of the other candidates under the same categories.