The leading candidate in Egypt’s presidential race said that if he was elected he would break with former President Hosni Mubarak’s reliably amenable policies toward Israel.
Amr Moussa, the 74-year-old outgoing head of the Arab League, said the former regime’s attempts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict had “led nowhere” and that Egypt now needs policies that “reflect the consensus of the people.”
Mr. Moussa, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, also described a political landscape in which the Muslim Brotherhood, outlawed under Mr. Mubarak, is dominant. It is inevitable, he said, that parliamentary elections in September will usher in a legislature led by a bloc of Islamists, with the Brotherhood at the forefront.
Mr. Moussa, who comes from a secular political background and says he will run as an independent, leads all candidates in opinion polling ahead of what Egyptians hope will be the first free and fair presidential elections in their country’s history by the end of November.
But if Mr. Moussa, who was Mr. Mubarak’s foreign minister from 1991 to 2001, is elected, he is likely to accelerate shifts in Egypt’s foreign policy that have already vexed the U.S. and Israel.
Since massive demonstrations overthrew Mr. Mubarak’s regime in February, the new military-led government has negotiated a power-sharing deal between the Palestinian Authority and the militant Islamist party Hamas, pledged to work toward normalizing estranged relations with Iran, and announced plans to permanently open Egypt’s border with the blockaded Gaza Strip, against protests from neighboring Israel.
Mr. Moussa and Egyptian diplomats have described Egypt’s new approach to regional politics as a diplomatic reopening rather than a realignment.
Under Mr. Mubarak, Egypt was arguably Washington’s closest political partner in the Arab world. While following the American line in its policies toward Israel, the Palestinians and Iran brought benefits, it also cost Egypt its once muscular diplomatic influence in a region that is now witnessing its most profound political change in more than a generation.
Mr. Moussa, who has headed the Arab League since 2001—and will step down on May 15—said he wants Egypt to reclaim its rightful place as the Arab world’s most powerful nation.
That includes asserting Cairo’s place in relation to Israel. “Mubarak had a certain policy, it was his own policy and I don’t think we have to follow this,” he said. “We want to be a friend of Israel, but it has to have two parties, it is not on Egypt to be a friend. Israel has to be a friend, too.”
Restoring Egypt’s status, he says, demands a more populist perspective on foreign policy. “We live in the 21st century and we have to be part and parcel with those who influence the current circumstances in the region or in the world,” he said in his Arab League office, less than a block from Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the focal point of protests that felled Mr. Mubarak. “We were outside this circle. We have to get back to it as partners in leading the world.”
Mr. Moussa owes the bulk of his popularity to his trenchant criticism of Israel and the U.S. while he was foreign minister. In recent years, for example, he has said Israel’s unacknowledged nuclear program poses a bigger threat than Iran’s program.
U.S. and allied governments are, in private, voicing concerns about Egypt’s increasingly confrontational line toward Israel under the current military rule. Officials from these countries said they acknowledge that rhetorical attacks by Mr. Moussa and other presidential candidates could increase as Cairo moves toward elections.
Still, U.S. and European officials said they don’t see the Egypt-Israel peace agreement in danger in the near term. They say Cairo won’t place in jeopardy billions of dollars in aid.
Israeli officials, however, warned that by weakening its relationship with Israel, Egypt may end up forfeiting its place as a trusted mediator in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Mr. Moussa was resolute in his support for Egypt’s market economy, its free-floating currency, and its relative openness to international trade. He said his currency policy was among several issues he planned to “workshop” with experts.
The previous government pushed through several economic reforms in the past 10 years that expanded the economy but enriched a few wealthy Egyptians, while low-level wages failed to rise with inflation.
In a jab at the pro-market reformers who led the Mubarak cabinet, Mr. Moussa said the Egyptian people must begin to feel the impact of economic reforms immediately.
“We have 40% poor. You cannot just deal with them as if later on it’s going to trickle down in 10 years time,” he said.
In a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, 89% of Egyptians said they had a positive impression of Mr. Moussa—far ahead of competitors such as Ayman Nour, of whom 70% approved. Mohammed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace laureate, rated 57% approval.
Mohammed Salmawy, a newspaper editor, political analyst and personal friend of Mr. Moussa, says that amid Egypt’s upheaval, “Moussa has an edge because he gives people a certain sense of security.”
Yet the former foreign minister, who had a series of high-profile positions under Mr. Mubarak still faces the perception among democracy advocates that he is a regime crony.
“Amr Moussa is Mubarak II for me,” said Hossam Bahgat, a human-rights activist in Cairo. “A better-educated, more articulate Mubarak, who will implement the same politics as Mubarak.”
Mr. Moussa’s popularity skyrocketed in the 1990s, culminating in 2001 with the release of the unlikely pop hit “I Hate Israel (I love Amr Moussa)” by singer Shaaban Abdel Rahim. When Mr. Mubarak nominated Mr. Moussa as Egypt’s candidate to head the Arab League, many Egyptians suspected the president was trying to sideline a potential competitor.
Mr. Moussa says the reasons for his dismissal were less a question of petty jealousies than a disagreement over Egypt’s policy toward Israel.
“There was a conflict between us, no question,” Mr. Moussa said. “A disagreement…over certain policies, including, but not only, the Israeli policies, which I found leading nowhere. And they led nowhere. We are in year 11 since I left. And where are we?”