Egypt presidential rivals share secretive past

They sit at opposite ends of Egypt's political spectrum and one of them was jailed by a government in which the other was chief of intelligence. Now they both want to be president.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Khairat al-Shater and Hosni Mubarak's head spy Omar Suleiman have moved firmly into the public eye as last-minute contenders in the presidential election, redrawing the electoral map just weeks before voting.

If available opinion polls can be trusted, they will have to make up ground on Amr Moussa, the former Egyptian foreign minister and Arab League chief who enjoys wide name recognition and has been on the campaign trail for a year.

But both Shater and Suleiman are expected to do well in the election due to be held in May and June. One is the representative of an Islamist group that is the country's best organised party and the other is a former military man with establishment ties who is seen by his supporters as the best bet for an end to more than a year of turmoil.

Despite Suleiman's denials, his candidacy is widely seen as being backed by the ruling army council and sets the stage for a ballot box fight between a leading symbol of Mubarak's era and the Islamist movement banned under his rule.

Both Shater and Suleiman are viewed as mysterious figures whose distance from the public eye has been a hot topic in local media since their candidacies were confirmed. Their voices are hardly known to most Egyptians.

"Each of them belongs to the world of secret work," said Nabil Abdel Fattah, a political commentator. They are "two sides of the same coin", added Ahmed al-Sawy, a commentator writing in Shorouk newspaper.

Suleiman, 76, barely spoke in public until he was appointed as Mubarak's deputy in his last days in office. As his intelligence chief, Mubarak had tasked him with high-profile diplomatic missions. His portfolio included Palestinian affairs. In his few days as vice president, his most memorable speech was the brief Feb 11 announcement that Mubarak would step down.

Shater, a 61-year-old millionaire businessman seen as the Brotherhood's financial muscle, also stayed out of the public eye. Experts on the group see him as part of a hardline wing and someone who operated in line with a tradition of secrecy that grew out of decades of oppression from successive governments.

He was jailed repeatedly, spending a total of 12 years in prison. "Some say that Shater is a mysterious man and that he doesn't like communicating with the media," Shater told a news conference on Monday. "I must work hard to change this."

He and Suleiman join a field divided between Mubarak-era officials, Islamists, liberals and leftists, some of whom issued a statement on Monday warning that presidential bids by "symbols of the former regime" would split society and cause crises.

The Islamists include Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Salafi polling second to Moussa but who now faces disqualification because of documents showing his late mother had US citizenship - something he has denied.

The field also includes Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh, seen as part of the Brotherhood's moderate reform wing until he was expelled from the group last year for his decision to run against the leadership's wishes.

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