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Moderate Presidential Candidate Gets Egypt Poll Boost
(Financial Times-UK) Heba Saleh - The electoral chances of Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a moderate Islamist doctor running for president in Egypt, received a boost this weekend after a powerful hardline Islamist organization announced it would back his candidacy. The Salafi Call, an ultraconservative clerical grouping, decided to favor Aboul Fotouh in the May 23 poll over Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate, whose conservative credentials would have made him the more logical choice. Aboul Fotouh, a Brotherhood dissident, has attracted backing in liberal and leftist circles because of his promises to protect personal freedoms and his insistence on referencing the spirit of religion rather than the firm application of all its strictures. The Salafis fear that Brotherhood control of both parliament and the presidency would marginalize them.