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Troy Carter's Diary of The Elections In Egypt
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Elections Are Help In Egypt
The elections were held today for political office. Many polling stations were supposed to open at 8:00 A.M. but were not. This delay with the large amount of people voting forced the polls to stay open until 9:00 P.M. There was not enough security at the polls and many party members were violating voter rights. They struck fear into them and made them feel forced to vote for a certain candidate. -
Political Parties Pressure Voters
It was better than before but violations of the voters and the agents of the candidates were unprofessional. People were handing out flyers, asking people to vote for a certain person when they are going in the station. Sometimes there was not privacy in the voting itself, no curtain, nothing. Priests in churches told people who to vote for in each district. They are still counting the votes now but from what I have heard, the Free Egyptians party of Naguib Sawiris might win in several districts -
Results Favor Muslim Brotherhood
They counted the ballots yesterday and the results are unsurprisingly towards a majority of the Muslim Brotherhood, winning in some villages like Kafr El Sheikh with an 80% (as I heard). But there is also the Egyptian Cluster (Al Kotla Al Masrya) which is several parties together but it is lead by the Naguib Sawiris party, Al Masryeen Al Ahrar (Free Egyptians). People did not have problem with the privacy part because, they did not care if someone saw who they voted for. -
Voting Continues
There hasn't been any reports of violence yet but we still have rounds 2 and 3 on Dec. 14th and Jan. 3rd respectively. As far as the system goes we just started debating it. The Muslim Brotherhood would like a very strong parliament and a weak president and liberals are now talking about a semi-presidential system. This is taking place as the junta continues to say that it will appoint 80% of the constitutional drafting committee and the Islamists led by the Muslim Brotherhood say no. -
Military Attacks Demonstrators
The military is attacking people who demonstrate against their rule because the military is trying to keep the elected government powerless. Imagine in the U.S. that congress had no power, the president had no power, and the judges had no power to tell the joint-chiefs of staff what to do. -
Emad Effat's Death Raises Awareness
The military police dragged a female protester and her clothes came off as they dragged her and beat her up, I am sure you will find it on youtube. Also, an important sheikh from Al Azhar, Emad Effat, was shot dead last Saturday at around dawn in front of the parliament headquarters; his funeral was huge, more than 10,000 people were there. The situation is puzzling, there are a lot of incidents that are left unexplained by the SCAF. -
Brutality Continues
Women are not a target, it happens that there are two different incidents with two different women and one of them might have done that on purpose because women wear other layers under their Abaya (the long sleeved long dress she was wearing) but one of these women was not wearing a thing, which is unusual, also that same woman did not even have any bruises; while the other one is still in a coma I think with several broken bones and stitches in her head! -
Religious Traditions
Religious traditions are not fought over except by fundamentalists; fanaticism and fundamentalism are in all religions, I mean we read about Christian fundamentalism in the U.S. a lot. So, I would say that this could be a stereotype that you have and it is not true. There is no problem regarding religion in Egypt; no young and old, Christian and Muslim, etc. Basically a failing strategy to "divide and conquer."
