Moussa came as an egocentric and arrogant bully. He reminded us why we should not vote for the leftovers of an entitled regime with empty rhetoric and elastic principles (by the way, saying that Iran is an "Arab" country and that he was from the "opposition" made the 5 hour debate worth it.)
Abol Fotouh sounds like an honest man with integrity however the debate highlighted his vulnerabilities (weak debater, confuses the forest from the tree, lived too long in the Muslim Brotherhood bubble and a tad boring). It was disappointing to see him without a clear strategy for the debate and spent most of the time on the defensive.
In summary, We do not think Moussa won any new fans but mostly kept his existing supporters, especially the so-called "kanaba party". We fear Abol Fotouh lost some of the educated moderates (too conservative for them) and a number of radical Islamists (too moderate for them). Several "pundits" claim that the real winners tonight are the other candidates (e.g., Hamdeen Sabahy) but we disagree as Moussa and Abol Fotouh managed through this exposure, like it or not, to cement their position as the frontrunners.
Saying that and despite of the ridiculous questions, shallow answers, policy free content, boring structure, commercialized format, irritating Mona, length of the debate and the candidates weak calibre that leaves you hoping we don't waste this historic moment on any of them, we should be proud of this historic night. We are no longer a stagnant country but again leading the Arab world in building a transparent democracy (as the saying goes "what happens in Egypt doesn't stay in Egypt"). Egypt will not change in a year and It will not happen any time soon but with having debates, campaigning, open media, political parties, etc. there is no way back. We are moving forward.
In Liberal Koshari, we still think Abol Fotouh is the "best" choice available. We are not going to repeat our reservations as they are many and well elaborated here but nothing we saw or heard tonight surprised us. We knew what we were getting when we endorsed Abol Fotouh.
