Egypt votes in first post-Mubarak election
Nov 28, 2011
CAIRO- Egyptians is voting in their first election since a popular revolt ousted Hosni Mubarak, amid fears the generals who replaced the deposed leader would try to cling on to power.
CAIRO- Egyptians is voting in their first election since a popular revolt ousted Hosni Mubarak, amid fears the generals who replaced the deposed leader would try to cling on to power.
In the nine months since the end of Mubarak's 30-year rule, political change in Egypt has faltered, with the military apparently more focused on preserving its power and privilege than on fostering any democratic transformation.
Frustration erupted last week into violent protests that cost 42 lives and forced the army council to promise civilian rule by July.
In Cairo, Alexandria and other areas, voters stood patiently in long queues, many of them debating Egypt's political future that for the first time they believed they could shape.
"Aren't the army officers the ones who protected us during the revolution? What do those slumdogs in Tahrir want?" one woman asked loudly at a polling station in Cairo's Nasr City.
"Those in Tahrir are young men and women who are the reason why a 61-year-old man like me voted in a parliamentary election for the first time in his life today," one man replied politely.
About 17 million Egyptians are eligible to vote in the first two-day phase of three rounds of polling for the lower house, which will be completed on Jan. 11.
Oppressed under Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist parties stood aloof from those challenging army rule, unwilling to let anything obstruct elections that may open a route to political power previously beyond their reach.
"We are at a crossroads," Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi said on Sunday.
"There are only two routes, the success of elections leading Egypt towards safety or facing dangerous hurdles that we in the armed forces, as part of the Egyptian people, will not allow."
The United States and its European allies, which have long valued Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, have urged the generals to step aside swiftly, apparently seeing their grip on power as provoking instability in the most populous Arab nation.
Tents of protesters demanding an immediate end to army rule still stood in Tahrir Square, but after heavy overnight rain, the epicentre of the anti-Mubarak revolt was far from crowded.
There were no reports of serious election-day violence. But scuffles among women voters erupted at one Alexandria polling station that opened late because ballot papers had not arrived.
At least 1,000 people were queuing outside one polling station in Cairo's Zamalek district when it opened at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT). "We are very happy to be part of the election," said first-time voter Wafa Zaklama, 55. "What was the point before?"
In Alexandria, Egypt's second city, men and women voted in separate queues. Campaign posters for Islamist parties, such as the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the Salafi Nour Party and the moderate Wasat Party festooned streets. Troops outnumbered police guarding polling stations.
"This is the first real election in 30 years. Egyptians are making history," said Walid Atta, 34, an engineer waiting to vote at a school on his way to work in Alexandria.
Reuters