Egyptians vote in parliamentary elections

By Tom Perry and Heba Kandil

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptians voted on Wednesday in the first
stage of legislative elections expected to make only minor
inroads in the domination of parliament by President Hosni
Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP).

Some voters and witnesses reported skirmishes and electoral
abuses in the first few hours after polls opened at 8 a.m.
(0600 GMT), but others saw an improvement in the political
climate.

The overall level of violence appeared lower than in
previous elections.

In the south Cairo suburb of Maadi, NDP supporters scared
away voters until security forces arrived, witnesses said.

One voter there, Karim Mahmoud, said: “This is not
democracy. Thugs intimidated me with knives. Only when security
forces came much later was I able to go inside.”

Wael Omar, a cameraman for the monitoring group Shayfeenkum
(We are watching you), said a fight broke out at a polling
station in the Torah area.

“I was filming (the fight) when an NDP-backed thug punched
me in the mouth, insulted me and told me to leave. Security
people just stood by,” he told Reuters.

In another Cairo constituency, 50 women voted and then left
a polling station without indelible ink on their fingers, said
Hesham el-Hilali, spokesman for an Islamist candidate.

Shayfeenkum said a polling station in the Daher district
was closed because a judge was found stuffing a ballot box. It
reopened after the judge was replaced, it added.

In Sayeda Zeinab in central Cairo, Muslim Brotherhood
spokesman Hussein Abdel Zaher said government vehicles brought
hundreds of voters, in violation of election laws.

President Mubarak, his wife Suzanne and son Gamal voted
together near the presidential palace in northeast Cairo.
Gamal, 41, is a prominent NDP politician widely seen as a
possible successor to his 77-year-old father, in power since
1981.

The elections are especially important this year because
they could decide who can run to be president of the Arab
nation’s most populous nation at any time up to 2010.

VARIABLE TURNOUT

The opposition parties need at least 23 of the 444 elected
seats in the lower house to retain the right to field a
presidential candidate during the next parliament’s term.

The witnesses said turnout appeared to vary widely from
place to place and security was heavy in some areas.

But several of those who did vote said they were encouraged
by what they called a change in the political climate.

“The last time I came to vote, they didn’t want to let me
in and we stood for hours. This year we are seeing a lot of
change,” said Fatma Zahra, a fully veiled 30-year-old woman.

Mohamed Youssef, a professor of medicine who voted in the
Cairo suburb of Mohandiseen, said: “I feel that there has been
change. In previous elections, I used to be asked a lot of
questions but so far in these elections, no one has approached
me. I hope that this margin of freedom is real.”

The NDP, which had over 85 percent of seats in the old
parliament, is expected to win a large majority, just as
Mubarak did when he scored 89 percent in the first contested
presidential elections in September.

In the first stage of the elections on Wednesday, voters in
Cairo, the central provinces and two remote areas will choose
from some 1,500 candidates competing for 164 of the 444 elected
seats in the lower house of parliament.

Other parts of the country will vote on November 20 and
December 1, with second-round run-offs six days later. The
final result may not come out until mid-December.

The opposition to the NDP comes mainly from the Muslim
Brotherhood, a moderate Islamist group which runs candidates as
independents because the authorities have refused to let them
form a party. It has about 140 candidates and was the largest
single opposition group in the outgoing assembly with 17 seats.

Secular opposition groups, ranging from liberals to
leftists and Arab nationalists, have formed a separate
alliance, fielding joint candidates for half the seats.