CAIRO, 31 July 2005 — Ayman Nour, the main opposition candidate in Egypt’s upcoming presidential election, challenged incumbent President Hosni Mubarak yesterday to a one-hour televised debate during the campaign.

“I challenge Mubarak to face me in a 60-minute televised debate during which I will expose his responsibility over the past 24 years,” Nour told reporters in Cairo.

Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt under a state of emergency since the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat, announced Thursday that he would seek a fifth six-year mandate in the Sept. 7 election.

Nour is currently on trial over what he claims are trumped up charges of forgery aimed at undermining his campaign.

Nour, who was the first to register his candidacy with the electoral commission Friday, proposed a two-year transition period for the implementation of reforms before holding new elections.

“If I win, there will be new elections in 2007, after we carry out all the reforms and draft a temporary law,” he said.

The 40-year-old lawyer, who heads the Ghad (Tomorrow) party, had to hold his press conference in the street after being denied access to the Beit Al-Umma — or House of the People — the former residence of historical nationalist leader Saad Zaghlul.

“This house is known as the house of all Egyptians. It shows the authorities are scared of losing their monopoly of power,” Nour said.

Nour, whose remand earlier this year heightened his profile and drew fierce condemnation from Washington, has emerged as Mubarak’s only serious challenger in the September poll.

But opposition parties, most of which have decided to boycott the election, charge that the poll reform allowing for a multi-candidate vote imposed too many restrictions on challengers.

They also demand that independent monitoring of the polling process be allowed to guarantee the transparency of the vote, amid allegations that the May referendum on poll reform was rigged.

Presidential Campaign Ignites

‘War of the Crescent’

With Mubarak’s re-election a foregone conclusion, the toughest battle of Egypt’s first contested presidential poll is being fought over party symbols, a major vote-winner in a country where illiteracy is rampant.

Each candidate wishing to run in the Sept. 7 election for the country’s top job has to choose the symbol that will appear alongside his name on the ballots.

But only one will be allowed to use the coveted moon crescent (hilal in Arabic), an Islamic symbol several candidates, including to the two frontrunners, want as the logo for their campaign.

Nour was the first to enter the electoral commission when it opened on Friday.

He registered his candidacy and therefore claimed his right to using the Islamic crescent as his symbol.

Yet Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party, which has used the crescent as its symbol in previous elections, claimed that the president’s lawyer, Mohammed Dakruri, was the first to register at the electoral commission.

An AFP photographer at the commission said Mubarak’s representative did not show up until several hours after Nour completed his registration process.

“It’s a huge scandal, the crescent is ours,” Nour’s wife and spokeswoman Gamila Ismail told AFP. She added that if her husband was barred from using the crescent, he would opt for the palm tree.

Three other candidates who were less swift to file their candidacies also chose the crescent: Osama Shaltut, Sabri Abdel Aziz and Wahed Al-Uksuri, all of them representing minor parties.

People wishing to run in the country’s first pluralist presidential election have until Aug. 4 to register their candidacies, after which the electoral commission will announce the list of contenders and their campaign symbols.

According to UNESCO estimates, adult illiteracy topped 40 percent in 2003, one of the worst rates in the Arab world.

The January general elections in Iraq showed that, in countries with a large illiterate population, symbols can play an important part in clinching a few extra votes.

School Dropout Who Had a Dream Runs for Presidency

The latest candidate to challenge President Mubarak for Egypt’s top job is a humble farmer from the Nile Delta who dropped out of school, Egyptian newspapers reported yesterday.

Besides the incumbent president and his main rival Ayman Nour, the electoral commission has received the applications of some unlikely aspirants.

Mohammed Mohammed Mussa told Egyptian newspapers that he decided to run “because he saw the number 117 in his sleep” and said it was a sign from God asking him to enter the race for the Sept. 7 poll.

The presidential electoral commission is located at 117 Abdel Aziz Fahmy Street in Cairo’s Masr Gedida district.

Mussa was described by the press as a high school dropout who owns five dunums (half an hectare or 1.2 acres) of farmland near the northeastern city of Ismailiya.

“My only program is to apply the law of Islam,” he said.