On Monday and Tuesday, and as millions of Egyptians went to the polls to vote in the first stage of the parliamentary elections, the mood was decidedly one of tolerance and optimism. Long queues outside polling stations were to be seen everywhere in Cairo, and people waited patiently for hours to vote, chatting amicably about their political preferences and how adamant they were that members of the former ruling party should not be allowed to enter the new parliament. The mood was a throwback to the early days of the Revolution, when people felt proud of what they had achieved and optimistic about the future. Such feelings have largely disappeared over the last few months, giving way to feelings of anxiety and to sharp polarisation. However, as I write this piece late on Tuesday after the polling stations have closed, there are disturbing signs that the jovial mood I and others experienced during the few hours spent waiting to vote on Monday morning is rapidly disappearing. There have been reports of rioting outside 36 polling stations in Cairo's poorer districts, allegedly because many people were not able to cast their votes by the end of the second day and were insisting that the stations be opened beyond the legal deadline in order to allow them to do so and avoid the LE 500 fine imposed on people who do not vote. Judges presiding over the local voting committees were also held captives inside some of the polling stations, and military police had to intervene to rescue them, along with ballot boxes, and ferry them to the counting centres. Government employees working as administrators and clerks at polling stations across the country and angered by the poor financial compensation they were getting for the extra work also decided not to continue working unless their grievances were addressed. Finally, the protesters in Tahrir Square who have been staging a peaceful sit-in for the past ten days and were brutally attacked by police when it began leaving some 40 people dead and hundreds injured, were attacked again on Tuesday night, this time by thugs armed with rocks, bottles, birdshot and Molotov cocktails. The American network CNN reported that at least 88 people had been hurt, 28 of them seriously enough to be taken to hospital. Whereas during Monday and well into Tuesday the country seemed to have forgotten about the Tahrir protesters, they were always bound to return to the fore, especially after Tuesday's clashes, which many believe were encouraged by the security forces. Late on Tuesday night, presidential hopeful Mohamed El-Baradie wrote on his Twitter account that “thugs are now attacking protestors in Tahrir. A regime that cannot protect its citizens is a regime that has failed its people.” Last Friday, El-Baradie visited the protesters in Tahrir, and they received him warmly, expressing the desire to see him head a government of national salvation. The following day, El-Baradie said that he would be willing to end his campaign for president if the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) conceded some of its power to him, allowing him to address some of Egypt's most pressing problems during the seven-month interim period before the presidential elections. El-Baradie's proposal was not welcomed by the SCAF, which at least for the time being is still insisting on its choice of Kamal El-Ganzouri as head of the interim government. It is ironic, as well as sad, that the only force capable of wresting concessions from the SCAF at this stage are the Tahrir protesters, themselves marginalised in the political haggling between the regular political forces over the future of the country. It was their protests and their blood that ignited the uprising in January, and likewise it was their protests and their blood that last week brought down the cabinet of former prime minister Essam Sharaf and forced the leader of the SCAF, field marshal Tantawi, to commit himself to the deadline of June 2012 for the presidential elections, something that he had previously been avoiding. It is unfortunate that most of these heroic young people seem to have no strategy beyond insisting on avenging their fallen comrades and bringing down the SCAF. Karl Marx once described Europe's 18th-century revolutions as having had consistently dramatic effects that always sought to outdo each other. “Men and things seem set in sparkling brilliance,” he wrote, and “ecstasy is the everyday spirit; but they are short-lived: soon they have attained their zenith, and a long crapulent depression lays hold of society before it learns soberly to assimilate the results of its storm-and-stress period.” Let us hope this week's elections will help pave the way for us to get over our own storm-and-stress period, though many of the young people under attack in Tahrir now think that holding elections before bringing down the SCAF constitutes an act of betrayal. This is a perception that the majority of the nation does not share.
