EGYPT’S RULING military council considers the massive turnout in the first phase of the country’s parliamentary election as a vote of confidence in its policies.
The military estimates 70 per cent of the 17 million eligible voters participated in the two-day popular consultation.
Council member Maj Gen Mukhtar al-Mulla said the vote countered sceptics who did not believe elections could take place on time.
He called the numbers of those casting ballots “unprecedented in the history of the Arab world’s parliamentary life”, adding the vote was the “first step in the path to a new democratic state” and would be followed by the drafting of a new constitution and a presidential election, scheduled for June.
However, many Egyptians who cast their ballots believe the new assembly will have little authority and argue the military does not intend to hand over to a civilian government. They hope the huge vote will, however, compel the generals to curb their ambitions and, ultimately, withdraw from political life.
In spite of a spate of violence that preceded the poll, and confusion over hundreds of candidates and multiple party lists, the election has been largely peaceful and voters left polling stations with a sense of achievement, displaying fingers and thumbs dipped in ink to prove they had voted. Large numbers of the poor, however, voted out of fear if they did not they would have to pay a fine of 500 Egyptian pounds (€62) they could ill afford.
Voting proceeded more efficiently yesterday than on Monday, when polling centres were swamped by hundreds of thousands of eager first-time voters. At the Kawmia school in Cairo’s upscale district of Zamalek, where women queued for hours on Monday, the two-day turn-out was more than 60 per cent, local observers told The Irish Times proudly.
They said their team would follow army trucks transporting the sealed ballot boxes to the election centre, and monitor the overnight count.
At the fine arts school nearby, men wearing colourful badges of the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, greeted voters entering the station, but did not hand out leaflets as they did at other locations, in violation of a ban on campaigning.
Muhammad Badran, a candidate standing elsewhere, admitted the party was unlikely to do well in staunchly secular Zamalek. Thanks to its strength in lower middle and working class areas, the party expects to win 30 per cent of the 498 seats.
While Cairenes were preoccupied with the election, several hundred campaigners seeking to oust the military council prepared for a protracted stay at Tahrir Square, adjusting the rigging of their tents, making sanitary arrangements and collecting garbage. Tahrir, the cradle of the uprising, has become a magnet for day trippers and tourists and a souq where peddlers sell flags, food, tea, soft drinks and newspapers.
Men circulate with candyfloss and barrows piled with nuts and ears of maize roasting on braziers. Bedecked with banners and flags, Tahrir has become tatty and tawdry – but it remains the heart of the Arab world’s seminal revolt against authoritarian rule.
Analysts predict a three-way power struggle could erupt in March or April when parliament sits and insists the assembly should form the government, rather than the military council. This contest could involve the brotherhood, the democracy movement and the generals, and its outcome could be determined by the response of voters and their relationship to Tahrir.
The square has become a no-go area for the security forces and army. It is the site where opponents of the military can assemble and put forward demands which the generals are obliged to consider or face mass risings in the country’s main towns and cities.
For the time being, the democracy movement based in Tahrir and newly energised secular voters are locked in a symbiotic relationship which could challenge the generals and the brotherhood and decide the political future of Egypt.