Egypt: The top 10 most influential people  · Global Voices
Marwa Rakha

Blogger Ahmed Shokeir conducted a survey to find out the 10 most influential people in Egypt after he was surprised to find out that Gamal Mubarak, son of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak — who is expected to succeed his father — was among the 2009 TIME 100 Finalists .
Shokeir writes:
Zeinobia shared the top 10 most influential people in Egypt according to Shokeir's survey:
First of all we do not have these kinds of lists in Egypt regularly , second you must know that this was held on an Egyptian blog , the participants are considered a very small sample from the Egyptian society “More than 120 participants on his blog and more than 300 participants in the event on the face book” and some may considered it as unrepresentative sample still most of the answers surprisingly represent the views of most Egyptian people as I see it.
Saving the best for last, Zeinobia shared the top 9:
In 10th place for 168 points The Egyptian National football team trainer Hassan Shahata.
In 9th place for 181 points businessman Naguib Sawiris.
In 8th place for 200 points president Hosni Mubarak. “26 votes”
In 7th place for 200 points journalist Ibrahim Eissa . “46 votes”
In 6th place for 202 points businessman Ahmed Ezz.
In 5th place for 215 points scientist Ahmed Zowail.
In 4th place for 262 points TV hostess Mona El-Shazely.
In 3rd place for 325 points footballer Mohamed Abu-Tarika.
In 2nd place for 364 points Gamal Mubarak.
As for Egypt's most influential figure,
Now to my surprise :
In 1st place for 496 points comes Islamic TV preacher Amr Khalid.
With no doubt that the previous nine except for Ahmed Zoweil has played an important and influential role in our lives in 2009 but Amr Khalid !!??
Zeinobia is aware that:
this survey came at the seasonal peak of Khalid’s popularity after his Ramadan TV shows this year contributed much to this result besides of course the role of religion in our lives.
But she still wonders if he deserves to come first in the list.