SUEZ: In the streets surrounding El-Erbien Street, the site of fierce battles between police and protesters during the early days of the revolution, Suez residents lined up outside public schools on March 19 to vote on the referendum.
Residents took pride in referring to Suez as the birthplace of the revolution that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak. The first Egyptian to die in the protests was from Suez, Mostafa Ragab Mohamed, shot dead on the night of Jan. 25. The remains of the burnt El-Erbein police station were a constant reminder of the ferocity of the violence and the antagonism in a city that had always been at the frontline of Egypt’s wars.
On March 19, it was time to start reaping the rewards of the struggle.
“Thank God that we lived to see this day,” said Sa’ediya Salem. “The vote won’t be rigged. We have to vote, whether yes or no. We have to participate.”
In the referendum, voters are asked to vote yes or not on a set of constitutional amendments: changes to Articles 75, 76, 77, 88, 93, 139 and 148, the cancellation of Article 179, inserting a paragraph in Article 189 and adding two items to it.
“I feel free. There is no fear anymore,” said Salem’s niece, Aya El-Sayed, a university graduate.
Both were voting for the first time in their lives.
Monitors and judicial supervisors of polling stations said the turnout was unprecedented.
Wide-spread rigging, violence and intimidation had marred previous elections and referenda. Over the past decade, turnout never exceeded 30 percent of registered voters, according to official numbers. Independent observers projected much lower rates, especially at the last parliamentary elections in November 2010.
“It’s the best time we’ve seen a referendum” said Alaa Mostafa, a volunteer voting monitor affiliated with the local Sawysa rights group. One of the promising signs for Mostafa was obtaining the permission granting him access to polling stations from the Supreme Judicial Committee for Supervising the Referendum in Cairo after 24 hours of applying. In the last elections, the permissions were issued at the last minute and not for all monitors.
Outside the same station, El-Araby El-Mahmoudy Soliman said that when voting the official manning the ballot box told him to choose yes. “He took the paper from me and told me to go. I didn’t see him put it in the box,” Soliman said. “I voted no.”
The men that gathered around Soliman were quick to assert the integrity of the vote, with many saying nothing of the sort happened inside.
In streets leading to poll stations and sometimes right outside the public schools housing the stations, men were distributing flyers advocating a yes vote. One volunteer with the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights said he saw flyers distributed inside a polling station in El-Ganayen, Suez.
The Muslim Brotherhood and other religiously conservative groups have been advocating a yes vote across the country, with some flyers saying a yes vote was a religious duty.
Mahmoud Abbas, 40, harbor worker, said he was a supporter of the National Democratic Party and was voting yes for the stability of the country. Hossam Ghazy, 22-year-old medical student, said he voted yes to protect Article 2 of the constitution, which stipulated that Sharia is the source of legislation, and for stability.
Like Abbas, many said they voted yes for stability. With parliamentary elections planned in six months, people interviewed by Daily News Egypt said that a yes vote would chart a clear road to stability.
Others who voted no, said they want a new constitution altogether, not just amendments.
“I voted no. We want a new constitution,” said 22-year-old Diana Magdy, a fresh graduate of the faculty of commerce.
The added paragraph to Article 189 in the amendments stipulated that once elected, members of parliament would then choose a founding committee to draft a new constitution. Supporters of the no vote say they want the founding committee to be elected directly by the people and the drafting of the constitution to start before parliamentary or presidential elections. Analysts have suggested an interim president with limited powers to lead the country during this period.
“It’s a new constitution either way,” said Salem.
El-Sayed, who voted yes, said she wasn’t worried about drafting the constitution. “If we don’t like the new constitution, we will change it,” she said.
In interviews conducted by DNE, there were no gender of demographic characteristics identifying the yes and no camps. Both were happy to participate.
Emad Morsi, journalist with the local paper Sout El-Suez, described the day as “a celebration of democracy.”
“This is unprecedented turnout,” said judicial counselor Kamel Hanafy, who was supervising a poll station in Suez. “This is the result of the January 25 Revolution, and the people’s desire to be participants in change.”
The turnout, however, was expected to some degree. Hanafy said that enough ballots and phosphoric ink was made available to accommodate the numbers. Citizens could vote with national IDs, without having to register first or issuing voting cards. They were also allowed to vote in constituencies other than their own. Phosphoric ink was expected to last on the skin for 24 hours to prevent double voting.
Military police were guarding the poll station along police officers. Judicial supervisors were, however, the decision makers. Asking one police officer for permission to get inside, he referred DNE reporters to the judicial supervisor, saying he had the final say. In another polling station, a military police officer was seen asking prosecutor Marwa Abdel Tawab for permission to move queues of voters few meters inside the school. She agreed, giving him clear instructions that approaching the tent housing the ballot boxes had to be in limited numbers to keep order inside.
“People have entrusted the army,” Mostafa said, commenting on the turnout.
Outside the schools, some expressed residual resentment when it came to the police. “The spark [of the revolution] was in Suez,” said 60-year-old Abdel-Qawy Saad, who helped in organizing the neighborhood watches that guarded the city after police pulled out from the streets on Jan. 28.
With the violence that took place and the lost lives still in mind he said that even though people have accepted the return of the police to the streets, some are still slightly bitter.
“People are still not tolerant of the black uniform,” he said in reference to the police.
“But the police leaders have changed and we respect those on the streets now,” he added.
Head of the Suez security directorate Abdel-Hady Hamad was transferred to another governorate earlier in March. The governor, Seif El-Din Galal, was also removed.
There was an overall sentiment of preferring the army over the police there.
Sheikh Hafez Salama, a veteran of armed civil resistance in Suez with a legacy that included fighting British occupation and the war of attrition against Israeli troops in Sinai from 1967 to 70, was full of praise for the military.
“Our armed forces gave an example to the world by not firing one bullet at any Egyptian … The army proved to the world that our revolution is a white revolution. Martyrs [were killed] by the police,” he said.
“Those responsible for shooting at citizens with live ammunition have to be put on trial first for these crimes,” he added.
But outside one polling station, a group of high ranking police officers sitting with a young military police officer were reporting a more relaxed and respectful sentiment from citizens. They spoke of the reconciliation meeting that was held between police and community leaders, brought together by the army.
“The problem was with specific corrupt people and they were removed,” said one police officer who didn’t want his name published.
Few meters away from the burnt police station, Hussein Mohamed Hussein, who said he was protesting in Suez and Tahrir Square in Cairo in January and February, stressed that those involved in killing protesters have to be put on trial, not just removed from their posts.
The grievances, however, were part and parcel of the March 19 celebration. Not far from the governorate building, where protests for demands were held on weekdays, youth had turned a small public garden into a ‘Hyde Park’ of musical performances, seminars and artwork displays. A tent was perched up as a man held a guitar in the background; another was encouraged by his friends to sing. Surrounded by a fence adorned by posters of the Suez martyrs, a group of young men and women flaunted their fingers stained with phosphoric pink ink, an indication that they all voted.
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Mostafa Ragab Mohamed from Suez was the first Egyptian to die in the protests.
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