Egyptian presidential hopefuls travel across country in bid for votes The contrived campaigns and guaranteed landslide victories for autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak were swept away with last year's revolution. Now 13 candidates - liberals, Islamists and Mubarak-era figures - are vying to succeed him. Mohammed Kamal Tahawy couldn't believe that one of them had come to his town to ask for his vote. The tour guide listened intently as Aboul Fotouh told the crowd, "The king of this country, after God, is you, the people of Egypt." Orange posters emblazoned with his bespectacled face adorned the tent where Tahawy and other supporters cheered him on, fists pumping in the air: "The people want Aboul Fotouh for president!" Tahawy, like so many other Egyptians, said he had never voted before in a presidential election because the outcome was always predetermined. But this time, Aboul Fotouh was right; Tahawy and the more than 50 million other eligible voters will decide. "Today is my birthday and I feel alive," Tahawy said on the day he turned 27. No one has ever come here before. No one has ever asked what we think. Since the official launch of the campaign season on April 30, presidential contenders have been pleading for votes in television interviews and at rallies. They travel across the nation's 27 provinces on planes, cars and buses, kissing babies and shaking hands as they each try to convince undecided voters that they're the best man for the job. The Muslim Brotherhood is holding so many rallies for its candidate, Mohamed Morsi, that while he attends one, other prominent Brotherhood members hold simultaneous events in other parts of the country. To the deep disappointment of young revolutionaries, the race has turned into a showdown between leading Islamists and figures from Mubarak's government. Many of them are boycotting the vote, but they represent a small slice of society. A big responsibility When Aboul Fotouh stopped in the northern Egyptian town of Abu Kabir, Youmna Ahmed, 15, craned her neck to see him, screaming, waving his picture and nearly fainting, as though a young pop star were in her midst. Her mother, who wears the face veil favored by ultraconservative Muslims known as Salafists, doesn't leave her house often. But Jihan Abdel Ghafour spent a full day handing out fliers for Aboul Fotouh, an Islamist who she said understands religion and the holy Islamic book, the Koran. The time for secular and repressive leaders is over, she said."We've taken time to make our comparisons. He has our support.