CAIRO: Long queues continued Tuesday in Ain Shams and Matareya as polling stations remained closed or delayed their opening on the second election day.
Voters at Matareya Technological Institute left the first day without casting their vote. After waiting in vain for more than 10 hours on Monday, women came back on the second day to find the delays continuing at their station.
“These are the worst two days of my life,” said Samia Abdelaal, housewife. “On Monday until 8:20 pm no ballots had arrived and we left. Today until 1 pm the judge hadn’t arrived,” she added.
“We need an explanation of what is causing this delay. Some people are saying the ballots aren’t stamped and other saying the judge hasn’t arrived,” said Hala Hassan, a tax collector.
“This is unacceptable. We leave our work to come vote. My husband in Helmeya voted in 15 minutes,” she added.
“We want to make Egypt the best country, with security, justice, freedom, education and welfare,” she said about her reasons for waiting to vote.
Local monitoring groups documented similar violations across the country, but the number of closed or delayed polling stations on Tuesday were less than Monday’s.
On Monday evening, Minister of Interior Mansour El-Essawy suspended Ain Shams Section Officer for his responsibility for the delay in delivering ballots to the polling stations, which is part of the fifth constituency.
Noha Ahmed, 29, student, said that the voting started at 1:30 pm at the Matareya Technological Institute but a lot of people told us to take care as many ballots are not stamped.
The women standing in the long queue each gave a different reason for the delay, some saying that the judge was late and others that the ballots hadn’t arrived. The army officer at the station said that ballots were at the station since 6 am.
Hayam Saad, who works at an Islamic Institute, said it took her only 30 minutes to vote on Tuesday. She came at 1:30 pm. “Everything is organized inside the voting rooms but outside is the chaos because of the people,” she said.
“It’s just that people are unaware of the procedure and they are angry and impatient after what happened yesterday,” Saad explained.
On the other hand, at the men section of the same polling station, voting was smooth taking no more than 10 minutes per voter.
“We need to know the reason behind the Section Officer not delivering the ballots to the polling stations, an investigation must go into this to know the incentive behind this delay,” said Mohamed Mortada, social counselor, who applauded the Minister of Interior’s move.
“We need to know why all these problems in Ain Shams specifically,” he added.
At the Sixth of October Primary School, holding 10 polling stations, only four were opened on Monday, but after 3 pm. On Tuesday, as voters returned, some of whom had waited outside until 7 pm the day before, the process went smoothly.
A judge supervising one of the stations inside the school said the doors will remain open until all cast their vote, “even if we stay here until the following morning.”
