Al-Ahram Weekly was on the scene as run-offs in the second stage of parliamentary elections took place in several governorates last week No voting allowed Mohamed El-Sayed and Serene Assir -- in Alexandria -- watch a day of protests turn steadily more violent. "We are protesting here because security forces won't let people into the polling station to cast their votes," said 12-year- old Mohamed, one of many young people taking part in a peaceful Muslim Brotherhood demonstration in the Alexandria constituency of El-Dekheila last Saturday. Despite the fact that he is still far below the minimum voting age of 18, Mohamed showed a great deal of enthusiasm about his political beliefs. "It is clear to us that Islam really is the solution, given that the government is so obviously corrupt," he said. Egypt's second largest city is widely known as a major Muslim Brotherhood stronghold. Six of the group's members won seats in different Alexandria constituencies without having to go into run- offs. Although in several of the run-offs that took place last Saturday, competition between Brotherhood candidates and the NDP was meant to be stiff, security forces intervention turned most into non- contests. "Look at what they're doing," shouted a group of Muslim Brotherhood supporters demonstrating outside El-Dekheila's El-Werdian polling station. With more than 208,000 registered voters, El-Dekheila is the country's largest constituency. And yet most of its polling stations were closed, surrounded by security forces from the earliest hours of the day. "They're blocking voters from entering because they want our Brotherhood candidate -- Tawakol Massoud -- to fail," one would-be voter said. "It's a shame," said Massoud, who ended up losing. "On the eve of the elections, security forces placed a destroyed police truck in front of a polling station, and told [anyone who asked] that it was destroyed by Muslim Brotherhood supporters." Responding to questions concerning the heavy police presence in front of polling stations, a security official first claimed that they were expecting violent acts of thuggery by Muslim Brotherhood supporters. "We want to ward off any violence, which is why we have closed so many polling stations," the official told Al-Ahram Weekly. Another security official, however, later contradicted what the first official had said. "In fact, these polling stations are open," he said. In any case, the Weekly was denied access into any of El-Werdian's polling stations. According to Massoud, "police opened the polling stations in El-Werdian for just 15 minutes in the morning, so that the satellite channels could film it, and say that everything was okay; after that, they didn't allow anybody in." When the head judge objected, police allowed voters in for just five minutes before blocking all the entrances again. Massoud said 120 Brotherhood supporters were arrested the night before the poll; police sources put the number at 74 persons who were detained for "intending to commit violence and thuggery". The men and women who gathered outside El-Werdian school to protest throughout the day were later cordoned off. Many held up their pink voter cards, and expressed their anger about having been forbidden from voting. "Open it," they shouted, referring to the polling station. "Don't rig it," they also yelled out, referring to the election as a whole. Although a security official claimed that the groups of demonstrators were "not actually registered to vote here," the Weekly verified that a great many of them were. As the demonstration intensified late in the afternoon, a senior security official in charge of guarding the station began preparations to bring in "the kind of group we had last week," seemingly referring to the thugs who -- during the initial voting in Alexandria last week -- intimidated voters in many a constituency. The Muslim Brotherhood says most of the thugs are ex-prison convicts brought in by the government; witnesses reported thugs being unloaded from microbuses in front of certain polling stations, who then waved machetes and knives at Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Unlike last week, however, as soon as the crowds dispersed, the thugs left. NGO monitors complained about being denied access to the polling stations as well. One monitor from the Egyptian Society for Supporting Democratic Progress said he couldn't get into a single Alexandria polling station. "I saw no less than 30 central security personnel in plain clothes being led by an officer into an El-Dekheila polling station to cast votes. When regular voters tried to go in with them, they were barred," he said. Judges approached by the Weekly said they were aware of "what was going on outside the polling stations, but there is nothing we can actually do about it". The judges' authority does not extend beyond the polling station's boundaries. "We have asked the government to extend our jurisdiction beyond the polling station, but it turned a blind eye to this request," said one judge. By evening the situation came to a head as security forces used tear gas to disperse Brotherhood crowds at several polling stations. As the official voting period ended at 7pm, security forces had cordoned off almost every polling station where Muslim Brotherhood candidates were expected to make significant advances. Traffic came to a standstill as battles broke out between security forces and protesters. In the end, seven NDP candidates, two independents and one Muslim Brotherhood candidate emerged victorious in the run-offs that took place in seven of Alexandria's constituencies. Run-offs in El-Manshiya, meanwhile, were cancelled altogether, having been contested in the courts. Time for change As veteran politician Khaled Mohieddin loses his seat, the quiet constituency of Kafr Shukr loses its temper. Reem Nafie reports Kafr Shukr, the quiet Qalyubiya constituency north of Cairo where Khaled Mohieddin has been MP since 1990, became a tense battleground during last week's run-off parliamentary polls. Mohieddin -- chairman and founder of the leftist Tagammu Party -- ended up losing his seat to Muslim Brotherhood candidate Taymour Abdel-Ghani Sadek. It was not a tranquil transition; according to lawyer Sabri Ali, the ordinarily calm constituency "has never seen parliamentary election violence like it saw" on Saturday. As hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters flooded the polling stations to vote for Sadek, Mohieddin's fans became seriously worried about their candidate losing his seat. The result was a series of fierce clashes that took place in front of different polling stations; with supporters of each candidate verbally insulting each other before descending into violent stick fights. On several occasions, the combatants went completely out of control, climbing up walls to better attack their opponents with their sticks. Every time the police broke up a fight, a new brawl would begin within 15 minutes. Many of the participants ended up with serious injuries. Ismail Hafez, a Sadek supporter, told Al-Ahram Weekly that, "there was no reason for all this violence; Mohieddin should know he's losing his seat -- that the battle is over." It was only natural, Hafez said, that this kind of change takes place. The 83-year-old icon's supporters, however, were not going to give up that easily. Frustrated and appalled, they wondered where their campaign had gone wrong. "I don't understand why the people of Kafr Shukr are doing this," said Hosni Farag. He suggested that Mohieddin's opponent might have offered residents some sort of bribe. "Mohieddin has been serving these people, and attaining their needs, for 15 years -- even before he was in parliament," he said. "They will realise the mistake they are making." Many of the voters interviewed by the Weekly said they neither "hated", nor had "anything against", Mohieddin. Government employee Mohamed Lotfi said, "Mohieddin is a fine man, and we all have a lot of respect for him, but with the changes taking place around the country, we need someone who's fit to pursue our many needs." Other residents spoke of voting for someone with "new promises" and "ideas". The constituency's other seat went to NDP candidate Ahmed Abdel-Aziz Seif, who won the run-off against independent El-Sayed Saad. Satisfactory for now Port Said bolstered its status as an opposition stronghold, reports Hicham Safieddine In Port Said, the National Democratic Party (NDP) suffered a significant defeat at the polls, with Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition candidates soundly beating the NDP in six run-offs. Although there were fewer clashes involving thugs, security forces and anti-government supporters than there were in the original contests, heavy security did slow down the voting process in some areas. In Qabooti, makeshift metal detectors were placed at the entrances of two polling stations. At Ohud High School -- where a couple of ballot boxes were torched and the judges overseeing the voting were threatened with swords during the first day of voting -- a police officer said the metal detectors were there to prevent the smuggling of weapons onto school grounds. Several voters objected that the repeated requests to go through the detector ended up constricting the flow of voters into the station; there was a widespread feeling that the security procedures were actually intended to dissuade voters from participating. "We have been waiting since morning to cast our vote, and they are letting us in at a very slow pace," said one of the voters standing in a queue outside the school. "But thank God it is peaceful today," he said. Four of six candidates fielded by the NDP ended up losing. A fifth -- having been co- opted by the NDP after making it to the run- off as an independent -- secured his seat after reportedly promising to remain independent after winning. A sixth NDP candidate -- Hussein Abu Kamar -- won the El-Arab constituency seat. Meanwhile, Muslim Brotherhood candidates Akram El-Shaer and Ahmed El-Kholani won their re-runs against NDP candidates Mahmoud El-Minyawi and Mohamed Sobh respectively. In a surprising turn of events, long-time MP and prominent Tagammu Party candidate El-Badri Farghali lost his seat to independent Rifa'y Himada. El-Farghali accused the Brotherhood of striking an unholy alliance with his rival and others to unseat other opposition candidates, a charge the group denied. While nationalist and leftist parties like the Tagammu and Wafd fared poorly at the polls across the country, in Port Said the Wafd's Mostafa Sherdy won his seat after a tight race against El-Sayed Mitwally. The Brotherhood's El-Khoulani said he planned on using his parliamentary seat to catalyse investments into industrial projects that could create jobs for Port Said's unemployed youth, especially in light of the fact that the city's duty-free status will be cancelled by 2009. "We plan to cooperate with all parties to tackle Port Said's unemployment problems," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. Whether or not the Muslim Brotherhood winners will form a united front with the other elected candidates to battle Port Said's problems remains uncertain; for many residents, the fact that opposition candidates prevailed -- despite the less than ideal conditions under which the voting took place -- is satisfactory for now. Out of hate Controversy taints elections in Fayoum again, reports Salonaz Sami The parts of Fayoum that saw the most violence during the first day of voting in parliamentary elections were almost empty of voters during the run-off contests that took place last Saturday. "It has been like this since early morning," said shop owner Mohamed Hassan. "Voters are scared to go to polling stations to cast their votes after what happened last week." Coupled with wide- scale arrests, the violence against voters -- mostly supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood -- on that first day of voting contributed to the low turnout across Fayoum for the run-offs. Independent monitor Michael Amir described the situation as "the quiet before the storm". In Senoras and Ebshway, the two constituencies where the Muslim Brotherhood fielded candidates, thousands of riot police were deployed, in many cases sealing off polling stations or severely limiting the number of people who could go in and vote. "The polling station was closed until 11am," one resident said. "When we asked the judge why, he said that there was a mix up in the voters' lists." Voter Akmal El-Fayoumy said he had tried to cast his vote at the El-Maahad El-Azhary polling station, but was unable to because of the police cordon all around the station. "The government encouraged us to take part and decide this country's future. Now the same government is stopping us from voting. It doesn't make sense," he said. Eyewitnesses told the Weekly that groups of armed male and female thugs were roaming the two constituencies' streets on foot or in vehicles, intimidating voters and initiating fights that led to at least eight people getting injured. "I was trying to go to the polling station with my father to cast my vote when we were stopped by a group of thugs armed with wooden sticks," said Mohamed Abdullah. "The security forces just stood around and watched as we were being attacked." While many residents of Ebshway seemed torn between voting for long-time MP Youssef Wali -- a former agriculture minister and ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) bigwig -- or Muslim Brotherhood candidate Hassan Youssef, the circumstances surrounding the run-offs actually helped some make their choice. Abdallah, for example, said he and his father decided to vote for the Brotherhood candidate, "not out of sympathy with the Brotherhood, but out of hate for the NDP." In Senoras, the situation was much worse. Several residents told the Weekly that the police was arresting anyone who tried to vote. Security forces also used tear gas to disperse crowds around polling stations. In the end, five NDP candidates, three Brotherhood candidates and two independents emerged victorious. Wali was among the losers.
