another way of looking at the choice

Another way of shedding light on the unfortunate runoff choice is to substitute a “Lite” version for each of the candidates.

So, let’s say it were Mohamed Morsi versus Amr Moussa. If I had a vote, I would certainly choose Moussa in that case. Moussa is fairly old regime, but not close enough to Mubarak’s brutal Revolution-era behavior that you’d feel your blood curdle while voting for him. Moussa did stick with Mubarak until a day before his downfall, but it was mostly snaky political opportunism, in my view. Moussa is someone you could probably work with, if you were a Revolutionary. His sheer ambition would lead him to make all kinds of concessions to your views, while the army wouldn’t be scared enough of him to go into a combative posture right away. That’s how I see it, anyway. I’d rather vote for him than for the Brotherhood, I think.

On the other hand, let’s say it were Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh versus Ahmed Shafik. Here too, it would be easy for me to vote for Aboul Fotouh. I’d have some misgivings about his past and about the shadier portions of his coalition. But when standing in front of the ballot, Islamist Lite would be a tastier choice (for me) than Shafik.

These options are not available when it’s Morsi versus Shafik, because neither is Lite. It’s not as bad a choice as the Salafis versus Omar Soliman would have been. But it’s still not a choice I’d want to have to make. It’s a real bind.