ISMAILIA: Residents of Ismailia were divided between candidates of Islamist parties and those of the liberal Egyptian Bloc on Thursday, as the second day of elections witnessed a low turnout.
Ismailia is considered the birthplace of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), where the founder of the group Hassan Al-Banna was born.
However, many voters in the city, including in the neighborhoods of El-Hay El-Awal, El-Tani and El-Sheikh Zayed, voted for the more liberal Egyptian Bloc.
"I voted for the Egyptian Bloc because they will deal with the people’s problems with efficiency, regardless of religion," Radwa Mohamed, 22, told Daily News Egypt.
Amira El-Ashry agreed, saying that people voted for the Egyptian Bloc in a bid to achieve some balance in the upcoming parliament. Results of the first round of elections showed sweeping gains for the Islamists, with the MB’s Freedom and Justice Party in the lead followed by the hardline Al-Nour Party.
"The FJP will win a lot of seats anyway, so some people want to balance the scale by voting for the Egyptian Bloc," El-Ashry said.
Both women brushed off claims that Ismailia residents favored Islamists, saying that the people voted for who they believed would best serve them. They voted in Fatma Al-Zahraa School in the upscale neighborhood of El-Hay El-Awal.
Suleiman Rashad, who tops the Egyptian Bloc’s list in Ismailia, told DNE that he was confident of the people’s support for him in the city. He was, however, worried about the suburbs.
"I’m intensifying my campaigning in the suburbs, where the Islamists have a strong presence," said Rashad.
Arguing that Islamists exploited religion to get more votes, Rashad said people in the city were well-educated and would not be easily influenced by his competitors. In suburban areas like El-Tal El-Kabir, Rashad said residents view the Egyptian Bloc as atheists, who know nothing about religion.
"I had to go lead them in prayers in the mosque so they would believe I was Muslim," he said.
Meanwhile, Gamal Hassan, who leads the Salafi Al-Nour Party’s list, downplayed the significance of the Egyptian Bloc, saying that the main competition was between the FJP and Al-Nour.
"The people are sick and tired of the so-called liberal parties like the former National Democratic Party; they now want religion and the implementation of Islamic Sharia," he said.
Some voters agreed, saying they wanted representatives that followed Islamic teachings for a change, unlike the former corrupt regime. Giving Islamists a chance this time around, they said if the parliamentarians fail them, they could always vote in favor of liberal parties in the next elections.
"If the Islamists don’t do the job, we’ll change them in the next elections; it’s in our hands," said Ahmed Hassan, 43.
Others believed Islamist candidates held the key to improving people’s livelihoods.
"The Islamic parties fear Allah and whoever fears Allah will serve the people with a conscience," Adel Khalaf, 49, said.
Hassan said that Al-Nour garnered a lot of support from residents in suburban areas, including El-Berka, Abou Atwa, El-Qantara and El-Qassasine, adding that residents of El-Tal El-Kebir supported both Al-Nour and FJP.
FJP candidate Zeinab Moustafa disagreed, saying the Brotherhood was popular everywhere and not just in the suburbs.
"The Muslim Brotherhood has served the people in Ismailia for years now," she said.
She explained that three members of the previously banned group won in the 2005 elections in Ismailia and proved their credibility. Members of the group bypassed the ban by running as independents under the former regime. In 2005, 88 members of the group won seats in the People’s Assembly, accounting for 20 percent.
Several voters agreed with Mostafa, saying that the Brotherhood has a strong presence in all Egypt’s governorates, no just Ismailia. The FJP got over 36 percent of the vote in the first round, followed by Al-Nour, which won 24 percent of the seats allocated to party lists.
Hassan denied that there was fierce competition between the FJP and Al-Nour saying that they cooperated and grew up together in Ismailia.
Fahima Ismail, 55, voted for the FJP saying they were the most organized party that followed Islamic teachings.
There are six seats up for grabs in Ismailia, including four for the political party list and two single-winner seats. A total of 164 candidates are competing over the individual seats while 17 parties are competing over the other four.
Judge Mohamed Abdel Moniem, supervising elections in a school in El-Hay El-Awal, said that the large number of individual candidates made the choice difficult for voters.
Judge Adel El-Dib, supervising the vote at El-Sadat school in El-Hay El-Tani where a military band was playing national songs to voters, agreed, saying the large number of candidates guaranteed that there will be run-offs.
Rashad complained that Ismailia was a huge governorate which used to be divided into three constituencies under the ousted Mubarak regime. Ismailia governorate represents only one constituency in this round.
"It’s very difficult for candidates to tour the whole governorate and campaign," he said.
With the exception of a number of polling stations, the turnout on the second day of elections was significantly less than the first.
Judge Abdel Moneim said that 50 percent of the registered voters cast their ballot on Wednesday. Other judges put the turnout on the second day at around 10 percent.
Security and violations
Security was limited outside polling stations, in comparison with the nearby Suez governorate, except for the Sheikh Zayed area where armored vehicles and tanks were seen guarding polling stations.
The majority of reported violations in Ismailia were the lack of screens inside polling stations to provide privacy to the voters casting their ballots.
At Al-Moushir Ahmed Ismail school in the lower-income neighborhood of Al-Shohada, the screen was set up backwards, which meant that the judge could see the voters as they marked their ballots.
The supervising judge, who preferred to remain anonymous because he wasn’t allowed to speak to the press, said he intentionally set it up this way to make sure voters weren’t substituting their ballots with forged ones.
FJP and Al-Nour both reported violations, including distributing flyers outside polling stations and influencing voters, without specifying which parties committed these violations.
A military band played patriotic songs outside outside this Ismailia polling station.
