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Egyptians vote in parliamentary elections

Posted on: Wednesday, 9 November 2005, 06:41 CST

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.

Source: REUTERS

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