Via An Arab Citizen, Bassem Sabry’s must-read blog on Egypt and Arab politics, comes a digest of some of the televised ads leading up to today’s first-round presidential vote.

The one above is from Amr Moussa’s campaign.  It’s what you might expect from any presidential campaign, but it’s awe-striking that it’s happening in Egypt, the world’s most populous Arab nation. The chant at the end translates to  “We Can Face The Challenge.”

Here’s a very different kind of ad, from the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohammed Morsi — it’s obviously much more traditional in tone and content:

And here’s one from Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh — you can see, in miniature, how Aboul Fotouh has managed to become all things to all people in this campaign.  For example, you can see both veiled and unveiled women (Morsi’s were all veiled, Moussa’s all unveiled), very traditional images followed by very modern images:

For completeness, here’s one from Dignity Party candidate Hamdeen Sabahi, whose neo-Nasserist nationalist rhetoric has led to somewhat of a surge. Lots of eagles!

Finally, it’s clear that former Mubarak prime minister and Air Force chief Ahmed Shafiq is targeting security as his top campaign issue:

For what it’s worth, Shafiq has by far the greatest ratio of dislikes to likes on YouTube, Sabahi by far the greatest ratio of likes to dislikes.  Aboul Fotouh has a fairly high “like” rate, as does Morsi.  Moussa has more dislikes than likes.

@Bassem_Sabry thinks the Morsi ads are the most effective.