Sunday's parliamentary elections do not appear to have been as violent as in 2005 but there has been no let up in the reporting of irregularities, writes Shaden Shehab The government promised that parliamentary elections would be fair and transparent. Whether or not it is a promise they have fulfilled remains questionable. For the first time in his life Abdel-Sabour Mohamed was determined to vote. "I voted because I believe it is time people had a say in who represents them in the People's Assembly," he says. Casting his vote at his local Nasr City polling station was simple. "There is hope, I told myself. But then I saw the forgery and violence aired on satellite TV and I had to face the fact that I was wrong." Images published in independent and opposition newspapers and scenes broadcast on satellite TV seemed to show irrefutable evidence of electoral malpractice. "On the whole the elections were fair. There might have been some irregularities but it wasn't the norm," insists Mohamed Kamal, chairman of the National Democratic Party's Indoctrination Committee. The Interior Ministry says there were only limited instances of violence, while the Higher Election Commission reports that polling was smooth, marred by isolated incidents of violence and fraud which were dealt with as they arose. It is an account that witnesses and human rights groups dispute. In some voting stations polling day was marred by sporadic violence, ballot boxes were stuffed after being closed, there were frenzied attempts to distribute food or cash in return for votes, and in some constituencies voters were prevented from reaching the ballot boxes. Independent monitors from human rights groups say they were prevented from entering many polling stations, which left low-level personnel from the government-run election committee to supervise the actual vote as the police watched from outside. The one positive point to emerge, report many, is that the police remained neutral as far as the candidates were concerned. Representatives of candidates and monitoring groups were often prevented from entering polling stations or attending the count. In a press conference on Sunday Kamal argued they were excluded because "they didn't have the necessary legal documents." According to the Health Ministry four people died on election day. Amr Sayed was stabbed in Cairo's Matariya district while putting up posters of his father but officials say it was a result of a quarrel over a woman. Hamdi Abdel-Sabour, a supporter of a Muslim Brotherhood candidate in Assiut, was shot dead. According to the Health Ministry Nagui Omran, a voter in Menoufiya, died due to low blood pressure while Nefissa Abdel-Hamid, an NDP representative in Alexandria, succumbed to a diabetic coma. According to the Higher Election Commission, 35 per cent of the estimated 40 million registered voters cast their ballots.
