Jalal Talabani became Iraq’s first elected president in 2005 after more than fifty years of dictatorship.

Khalid Saeed is the spokesman for the Egyptian Salafi Front party (al-Jabha al-Salafiya).

Dr. Yousry Hamaad is the spokesman of al-Nour Party in Egypt.

Mohammad Salmawy (b. 1945, Egypt) is the president of the writers Union of Egypt and Secretary General of the General Union of Arab Writers. He is the Editor in Chief of Al-Ahram Hebdo newspaper and writes in Al-Ahram daily news. 

Dr. Ali al-Salmi (b. March, 1936 in Alexandria, Egypt) is the Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister. He had served as Minister of State for Administrative Development from 1977-1978, and the Minister of State for Monitoring from 1978-1979. Al-Salmi earned his B.A.

Dr. Adel Abd el-Maksoud Afifi (b. March 1945, Cairo) is a former Egyptian government personnel. He served as the director of the security headquarters in the Ismailia from 1967 – 1969 and worked in the Immigration and Citizenship Department for 33 years, where he was the director of the department for 5 years. He was the representative of the ICMPD in Egypt.

Ahmed Maher was born on December 2, 1980 in Alexandria. He is a civil engineer by training, and one of the cofounders of the April 6^th movement. The movement launched its first activist campaign on April 6, 2008 in support of a Mahalla textile workers' strike, for which Maher was arrested and tortured. Read more about Ahmed Maher

Born in 1961, Hazem Salah Abu Ismael is a Cairo University Law School graduate and son of the famed late Sheikh Salah Abu Ismail. He announced his candidacy for presidency in May 2011. Abu Ismael espouses some conservative Salafi values.

Nouri al-Maliki is a former Shi’ite dissident against the Ba’ath regime under Saddam Hussein and since 2006, the Prime Minister of Iraq. He was chosen for his second term as prime minister in 2010, which he has vowed to be his last.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim was the leader of the Shi’ite Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (formerly the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, SCIRI) until his death in 2009. Founded in Iran in 1982 by Iraqi exiles, the party is heavily influenced by Shi’ite clerics and continues to be supported financially by Iran.