57% Egyptians prefer non-military president

An official report issued by the Egyptian cabinet's Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC), revealed that 57 percent of Egyptians prefer a civilian president who has no military background, while only 24 percent  would opt for a military president. The poll added that 51 percent of the respondents preferred a president who doesn't belong to a religious party or movement, while only 18 percent wanted a president who belonged to these parties. Twenty-two percent said affiliation to these parties did not matter. The poll showed that 76 percent of Egyptians preferred an independent president who doesn't belong to any political party, against 7 percent who supported the idea of ??a partisan president. A pro-revolution president would garner support of 63 percent of the poll sample, against only 2 percent support for an anti-revolution one, while 31 percent said this point would not affect their selection. Seventy-three percent of the respondents expected no candidate to win in the first round, while 63 percent showed trust that the elections will be held in a fair way. On ties with the former regime, 61 percent insisted they did not want a president who was part of Hosni Mubarak's former regime, against 14 percent who welcomed the idea.  Seventy-five percent admitted they had not read the manifestos of all candidates, but 38 percent said they did peruse that of Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh. Sixteen percent read Nasserist candidate Hamdeen Sabahy's programme, the same percentage was obtained by Amr Moussa, while the manifestos of both Mohammed Selim al-Awa and Ahmed Shafiq were read by 9 percent of the respondents. Ninety-eight percent said they did not participate in any presidential campaign.  The poll revealed that 47 percent preferred a president who was in his forties, while 33 percent preferred one in his fifties, and only 8 percent preferred a leader in his thirties.