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Live Updates 2: Egypt presidential runoffs enter final day
Published in Ahram Online on 17 - 06 - 2012

Voters continue to head to the polls for the finale of Egypt's polarising presidential elections, to choose a successor to ousted strongman Mubarak in a race that pits a former regime premier against an Islamist
17:30 The presidential campaigners are at it again. According to eyewitnesses in the Fayoum governorate's village of Agmeen, south of Cairo, several knife-wielding Shafiq supporters have attacked their pro-Musri counterparts.
The attack, according to Al-Ahram's Arabic-language news website, was incited by Ali El-Shazly, a former MP and ex-member of ousted president Hosni Mubarak's now-defunct National Democratic Party (NDP), along with members of El-Shazly's family.
17:25 Farouq Sultan, head of Egypt's Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission, announces that security forces had arrested someone who was helping voters cast ballots outside a polling station in Cairo's working-class Mansheyet Nasser district.
Sultan added that the individual had been found in possession of a laptop computer and a CD containing materials inciting the public to demonstrate outside Cairo's presidential palace and calling for acts of violence in the event that Shafiq won the election.
17:20 Judge Maha Nayel, who is supervising the Osman Ibn Afan School polling station in Giza's working-class Omraniya district, says turnout is low on the vote's second day.
"It reminds me of the Shura Council elections [held last winter and marked by particularly low voter turnout]," she told Ahram Online correspondent Ekram Ibrahim.
According to Nayel, most of the voters who came to her polling station on Saturday and Sunday were elderly people, mostly women. Many voters asked her, she said, to help them choose a candidate, frequently asking her opinion as to who she thought was a better choice.
17:15 Local rights group Maat for Peace, Development and Human Rights have released a report listing reported electoral violations on the second day of voting. The main violation reported is the 'use of religion' to sway voters, especially by the Mursi campaign.
Several judges and polling station employees were seen directing constituents to vote for Mursi, while heads of families and village leaders were seen urging voters to cast ballots for Shafiq.
Pre-marked ballots – in favor of both candidates – were also reportedly found, according to Maat.
17:00 BREAKING: The Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission announced that polling stations have extended by another hour to 10pm.
16:50Moving back to the capital, turnout is waning at the Ibrahimiya School polling station in the lower-middle class district of Abdeen, according to Ahram Online reporter Nada El-Kouny.
"During the first day of voting, dozens of voters lined up outside the station, while today there were hardly any queues at all," El-Kouny reported.
Rania Adel, a 21-year-old university student, and fellow student Menna Saeed, 22, came to the station to vote together, despite initial inclinations to spoil their ballots following Thursday's High Constitutional Court ruling dissolving Egypt's Islamist-led parliament.
"The court ruling confirmed that the military ultimately maintains complete control over the political process," Adel told Ahram Online. "How can they dissolve parliament while keeping Shafiq in place? This decision was made against the will of the people."
Adel added: "I protested in Tahrir Square against Shafiq when he served as Mubarak's last prime minister [during last year's Tahrir Square uprising]. How can we protest against him now, when he could very well become the next president?"
16:47 Campaign rivalry has turned bloody again as Muslim Brotherhood's official website Ikhwan Online reports that Akram Harony, member of the Mursi campaign was shot by Shafiq team's Hosseiny Mohamed El-Tahawy, on Sunday afternoon.
The gunfight, which took place at polling station number 41 in Manshiya village of the Nile Delta Sharqiya governorate, descended into village-wide clashes when the families joined in.
This follows yesterday showdown in Daqahleyia, where Shafiq and Mursi supporters fought with firearms and bladed weapons. One man sustained a gunshot wound to his right hand while a woman suffered a deep cut to her head.
16:30 The afternoon team is now with you, following the last few hours of Egypt's polarising presidential runoffs.
Across Egypt the public continue to head to the polling stations as the grand finale of the Egyptian presidential elections limp to a close.
The biggest story of the day is the apparent absence of voters. The Lawyers' Syndicate reported that only 15 percent of eligible voters hit the ballot boxes on Saturday. On Sunday, the turnout has been even more lackluster.
Nothing appears to have dampen the Brotherhood's spirits though, as they reported that turnout was not as low as "many say" claiming that more people are voting than during the first round and that their candidate Mohamed Mursi was doing well.
The Shafiq campaign also started the day cheerfully by tweeting a YouTube video of May's bloody clashes between protesters and the army in Cairo's Abbasiya district, as a warning for Egyptians that the Brotherhood is "trying to turn the country into another Iran."
This was not the end of the accusations leveled at the Islamist group – Israel later blamed Mursi and the Brothers for rockets fired from Sinai into the self-proclaimed Jewish state.
Back in the capital, the military and the police have been out in full force, with the obligatory helicopters circling polling stations. Soldiers continued to film, and in some instances follow, journalists.
For a blow-by-blow account of this morning's events as they happened visit here


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