Former US president Jimmy Carter (R) offers to shake hands with an official from Al-Azhar in Cairo, Thursday. Carter is in Egypt as part of the mission of his Carter Center to monitor presidential elections. — Reuters CAIRO – Egyptians say they want their next leader to be honorable, smart, a knight, a man with a heart, a military man, a religious man, one who goes down and meets with the people. What they are really looking for is a superman. Egypt's next president is facing an incredibly tall order of problems, from a tumbling economy and a beat-up security force to decrepit schools and hospitals that can't even provide enough incubators for premature babies. Turning out in large numbers to vote for the first time in free and competitive presidential elections, a deeply engaged population have a lot of expectations from the leader that will replace the longtime leader Hosni Mubarak. “We want a flawless president. We want him strong, just, respectable, clean, someone who feels for the poor. We basically want a superman,” said Heba el-Sayed, a 42-year-old teacher who was asking her colleagues outside a polling station in the popular neighborhood of Sayeda Zeinab who they voted for. In the voting that began Wednesday and ended Thursday, the hundreds of thousands who lined up at the polls had a litany of dreams. “I've lived under Gamal Abdel-Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and Hosni Mubarak,” Mahmoud Ahmed, a 70-year-old businessman, said, listing Egypt's last three presidents as he waited to vote in the impoverished Cairo district of Basateen. “What we want to see is someone with the firmness of Nasser, the political skills of Sadat,” he said. He said he wants the next president's priority to be to hold a “real” trial for Mubarak — reflecting how many Egyptians dismiss the current trial of the ousted leader as a sham. For Yasmine Abdel-Rahman, a 22-year-old veiled student who was voting in the southern industrial district of Helwan, a religious leader can bring justice. She was voting for the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood. “First thing he must do is get back the rights of all the martyrs. Many mothers' hearts are broken,” she said. Ali Ragab, a 27-year-old who runs a photo shop in a rundown neighborhood of Maadi, agrees. But he thinks only a president that can rival the charisma and populist ideals of Nasser can do the job. He's voting for Hamdeen Sabahi, a veteran opposition figure under Mubarak who proclaims Nasser as his role model. Sabahi has recently risen in polls, particularly among the working class and younger generations. “I want a leader like Nasser, who looks after the poor. I wish those days come back,” said the dreamy-eyed Ragab, born 15 years after Nasser's death. “We need a leader that has extraordinary skills, one that has a heart, a big brain, and can play politics. He must be all that,” he said as he helped other voters find their polling station.
