CAIRO: Minister of Interior Mansour El-Essawy suspended Ain Shams Section officer for his responsibility for the delay in delivering ballots to the polling stations in the constituency.
The fifth constituency in Cairo saw long delays in delivering ballots, as angry voters waited outside for hours. At the Palestine School in Ain Shams, ballots were as late as 6 pm, 10 hours after schedule. Reports indicated that some left before casting their vote.
El-Essawy appointed another police general to replace the suspended officer.
Before the minister made the decision, citizens had already filed several complaints, encouraging others and exchanging information with them on how to do so.
With less serious violations reported in other places, citizens also took matters into their own hands.
Queues stretched outside poll stations for hours, but citizens weren’t just out to vote; many were adamant on protecting the integrity of the electoral process and its conformity with regulations.
While standing in line, voters in the eastern Cairo constituency stood or spoke out against candidates violating regulations by campaigning outside poll stations on election day. Regulations also prohibit campaigning 48 hours before elections.
At Nasr National School in Heliopolis, voters stopped candidates’ supporters from distributing flyers outside poll stations.
People standing in line kept reminding one another to note that their ballots are stamped, in order to ensure the validity of the vote.
At Al Kamal School in Merghany Street, a polling station for women, ladies wearing sashes with Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) written on them were distributing flyers for the party, in addition to having a desk set up in front of the school with a laptop. The same type of FJP desks and booths were seen and reported throughout the country.
“Those who were distributing flyers were stopped, but the young lady on the desk has set it up to help people find their committee number to make the process easier,” explained the army officer in front of the school, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.
“It is true some people were distributing flyers early in the day but were immediately stopped and the flyers were confiscated,” he added.
Mariam El Barkouky, a voter who witnessed the incident, said that after the army officer told off the campaigner, “she just went around the school where they can’t see her and continued campaigning.” She said the woman at the desk was also telling people to vote for the FJP.
Each school had more than one polling station, each with a judge monitoring the electoral process. Judge Maha Elwy, who was heading a station at the Nasr National School in Heliopolis, said that she only had authority inside the station.
“Any sort of campaigning is not allowed inside the [station] as people go inside to cast their vote,” she added.
Elwy, who has supervised several previous parliamentary elections, said that this time is incomparable.
“We never even had close to half of today’s turnout. Not only that, but people are keen on the organization, which is making everything go smoothly,” she explained.
Reham Samir, a representative of candidate Mohamed Manzour, running as a professional for the individual seats, said that she has seen several attempts by party members to give the judges and the supervisors inside the polling stations water and sandwiches, but they refused to accept anything.
“There was nothing out of order inside the rooms where people are casting their votes, but there has been campaigning outside the school premises,” Elwy said.
“People were passing out flyers of candidates but the officers confiscated them and took their national IDs to file complaints,” Samir explained.
Cairo’s second electoral lists constituency, which includes the smaller individual candidate constituencies of Nasr City, Heliopolis and Ain Shams, has been allocated eight seats. These constituencies have long been a stronghold for the disbanded National Democratic Party, with intense competition from the Muslim Brotherhood, who used to field candidates as independents to circumvent a ban.
In 2005 businessman and member of the NDP Policies Committee Mostafa El Sallab won the professionals seat. He joined the People’s Assembly in the middle of the 2000 round when professional Fawzy El Sayed left the PA. When El Sallab fell ill and passed away before the 2010 elections, the NDP nominated then Minister of Petroleum Sameh Fahmy, who won.
In both the 2005 and 2010, the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate, Manal Abouel Hassan, ran as an independent. She lost and the elections were marred by accusations of rigging.
El-Sayed is running again for the Nasr City professionals seat this year.
For the workers seat, Thoraya Labana was the NDP’s long-standing candidate for the constituency. The last election she won was in 2005 before she passed away. In the 2010 elections, the NDP nominated Tawfik Abdel Salam, who won the seat.
