“We don’t know where they would take us if they won the most seats,” said electrician Sami Sayed Darwish, 58, who said he voted for liberals in an effort to offset the expected strong showing by the Islamists. “We are a moderate Islamic state, and they are strict.”
Hope and misgivings
The Monday vote marked the start of a three-month process to form what Egyptians hope will be the first legitimately elected parliament in the country’s history. Until Mubarak’s ouster, his National Democratic Party monopolized power, but elections, though rigged, gave the country’s autocratic system a veneer of democracy.
The last vote under Mubarak was held exactly a year ago, when the regime cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood ahead of the polling and fixed the vote so flagrantly that the Islamist party went from controlling 20 percent of the seats in parliament to none.
The prospect of casting ballots in a fair election drew many first-time voters to the polls Monday.
“I know these are going to be fair elections,” Tamer Gamal, 32, said as he stood in a long line in the working-class district of Shubra in Cairo. “We feel that the Egyptian vote now has weight.”
But many who voted Monday expressed mixed feelings about the process and misgivings about the future.
Mohammed Kenawi, a doctor who treated people wounded by riot police during clashes last week in Tahrir Square, said the recent unrest soured what would have been a joyous day. He had planned to vote for the Brotherhood’s party, he said, but changed his mind after it declined to join protesters calling for a quick end to military rule. Instead, he voted for candidates affiliated with groups that emerged from the revolution.
“This election came on the dead bodies of our martyrs,” Kenawi said. “We are still in need of a revolution.”
Despite calls by some activists for a boycott to protest the recent police crackdown, which killed at least 42 people, the number of holdouts appeared to be small. Hossam el-Hamalawy, a prominent activist and blogger, spent the day between sit-ins at the cabinet building and at Tahrir Square, refusing to participate in an election he called a “circus.”
“This is not the revolution’s parliament,” he said. “I will not vote at a polling station guarded by the police that have been killing us for nine months.”
Role of observers
Although the Egyptian government had said that it would not allow foreign monitors to observe the polls, election experts who nonetheless flew to Egypt for the vote said they received a surprisingly warm welcome.
“It was an open question until this morning,” said Les Campbell, the National Democratic Institute’s director for Middle East and North Africa programs, who was among the foreign observers in Cairo. “We’ve gotten the normal access observers would get anywhere else. I would say it was a pleasant surprise.”
A team of well-regarded Egyptian electoral observers issued a report Monday documenting incidents of violence and irregularities. The more than 400 observers found that one-third of polling stations opened more than an hour late, according to Project Rakeeb. Five percent opened more than four hours late because of missing supplies or personnel, the report said. The team said that 19 percent of its accredited observers were not allowed into polling stations and that in two cases observers were assaulted as they were kicked out.
Observers documented eight incidents of violence, including clashes between supporters of the Nour party and the liberal, leftist Egyptian Bloc in the coastal city of Alexandria. The experts also noted violations of a moratorium on campaigning 24 hours before election day, most prominently from the Freedom and Justice Party.
On Monday, voters had to choose a political slate as well as two candidates running as independents.
The election for the 498-seat People’s Assembly, the lower chamber of parliament, will last through January, with three stages of voting. Voters will then choose the 390-seat Shura Council, the upper chamber, in three stages of voting that will end in March.
Special correspondent Ingy Hassieb contributed to this report.
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