Egypt: 86% of presidential election coverage are rumours

Hazem Salah Abu Ismail The "Observers without Borders" Network, which are part of the New World Institution for Development and Human Rights, has issued its third report about the Presidential elections in Egypt planned in next month. The report concentrated on new media and social networks' coverage of the presidential elections, and highlighted the trend of spreading rumours about the presidential candidates, and raised questions about whether they can match the legal criteria required for candidacy or not.
The report stated that 86% of the social media content related to the presidential candidates was generating rumours, while only 16% of this content was dedicated to the candidates' programmes, which the report said were lacking in any practical steps to be achieved.
According to the report, the rumour that drew the biggest attention was the one related to the alleged US nationality of the mother of the Islamist candidate Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, citing 43% of the social media coverage of the presidential candidates was dedicated to this particular rumour.
Meanwhile, 26% of the entire coverage was associated to the Muslim Brotherhood's controversial decision to name Khairat al-Shater as the Brotherhood's candidate in the elections.  The report said that the scarcity of information about al-Shater was the main problem facing  the social network activists, who were confused about how to explain the Brotherhood's intentions regarding this decision.
Rumours about three other main candidates occupied about 17% of the information available about them through social media, namely  Arab League General Secretary, Amr Moussa, The former Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Bureau member, Abdelmoneim Abulfotouh, and the Islamist lawyer, Mohammed Selim al-Awa. Moussa was alleged to have a half-brother who was born to a Jewish wife of Moussa's father, While some reports said Abulfotouh is bearing more than one Arab nationality; as for al-Awa, the rumour mill claimed his father and grandfather were Syrians.
Thirty eight percent of the presidential election content, was dedicated to the late candidacy of the former Vice President, General Omar Soliman, most of it was offensive, as the social media activists described Soliman as one of the former regime remnants, hinting at the strong ties he has with the ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
According to the report, Amr Moussa came out top amongst the candidates as having the greatest hits,  followed by Hazem Abu Ismail in second place, and Abdelmoneim Abulfotouh third.
While three new candidates have emerged into spotlight of the forum of social media,  namely the last Prime Minister of  the Mubarak era, General Ahmed Shafiq, the National Leftist candidate Hamdein Sabahi, and the youngest candidate Khaled Ali.