Doaa El-Bey takes in the huge election turnout by Egyptians and Rasha Saad examines the Syrian situation after the Arab League sanctions Newspapers welcomed the parliamentary elections as the first step towards democracy. Al-Shorouk had 'People lead the revolution to the parliament'. Al-Ahram headlined 'People open the door to democracy'. Al-Akhbar bannered, 'Rebirth of the new Egypt', and Al-Masry Al-Youm led with 'Queues of freedom stand in absence of judges in some elections centres'. Writers, in turn, praised the high turnout, the organisation and the freedom of the voters to choose their representatives in the first post-revolution parliament. The editorial of the official daily Al-Ahram said democracy was the main objective of the 25 January Revolution which managed to topple the previous regime that represented despotism, corruption, authority and wealth. The first parliamentary election is especially important because free and fair elections were the only way to achieve democracy, the editorial added. It pointed to the fact the espousing democracy that presents the values of freedom of opinion, dialogue and national agreement on desired objectives, marginalises extremism. Meanwhile, the rotation of power would inevitably lead to the right national path. The revolution emphasised the importance of social justice as the genuine guarantee for political stability and economic progress. Thus, "the parliamentary election is the effective tool to impose the will of the people," the edit concluded. Sherif Riad said he was thankful that he witnessed such an election day in which the different classes and sects of the Egyptian people headed to the ballot box and freely chose their representatives in the first post- revolution parliament. It was the first step towards establishing civil authority in Egypt. The high turnout that the writer observed and the satisfaction that he saw in the eyes of the voters who waited in long queues and insisted on casting their vote deepened his belief that Egypt was reborn. Thus, Riad continued, the era of one-party rule and pre-determined results of the elections is gone forever. Now the word is for the people: no more pressure put on the people, no more buses to transport factory workers and women to election centres to vote for a certain candidate. "Millions of voters said it was the first time in their life to go to the ballot boxes. They voted because they knew that their vote was valuable and that it would contribute to drawing up the future of Egypt through a parliament that will draft the constitution," he wrote in the official daily Al-Akhbar. Riad noted with pride the unprecedented and unexpected turnout, the high turnout of youth, women and the elderly, the discipline of the voters who stood in organised queues and the presence of the police and army which secured the election centres. Mohamed Amin noted two features of the parliamentary elections: that ministers and top officials took part in the elections as normal citizens and waited in queues like everybody else. Second, citizens voted freely, there was nobody to influence voters for this or that party; judicial supervision was unprecedented and the armed forces provided the desired security. "The picture of the elections was very admirable. The army was present in every polling centre to protect it. Judges were present in their centres. Employees supervising the elections knew that they were on a national mission. Egypt is voting and that is the most important thing," Amin wrote in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm. However, he added, "we need solutions for some problems, namely the status of the government especially that we have three governments now -- one headed by Kamal El-Ganzouri, another by Essam Sharaf and the third in Tahrir Square headed by Mohamed El-Baradei." Amin concluded by hoping that the new parliament would not be a replica of previous parliaments; but the parliament of Egypt that would draft the new constitution and build the new Egypt. In that case, people will praise the 25 January Revolution rather than criticise it. The choice of El-Ganzouri to head the next government raised controversy among people as well as political analysts. Mohamed Esmat regarded the choice as a compromise between the demands of the protesters to establish a new political system in Egypt and the vision of the ruling military council to reform the old system. El-Ganzouri, Esmat wrote in the independent daily Al-Shorouk, lacked the political history that would make him equal to the values of the revolution because he was one of Hosni Mubarak's men. However, that applied to many officials including Sharaf who was selected by the protesters and later proved to be the wrong choice. "El-Ganzouri is now walking a minefield. He has neither the support of the protesters nor clearly defined authority from the ruling military council," he added. As a result, he will not be able to speedily try the persons accused of killing martyrs, purge the Ministry of the Interior, declare a minimum and maximum level for wages and speed up Mubarak's trial. However, Esmat summed up his column by expressing his optimism that El-Ganzouri could succeed in his mission given two factors: if he is able to alienate the military council from political affairs, the protests will remain in Tahrir Square and in all major squares in Egypt. Abbas El-Tarabili asked whether the age of division had started. He wrote in the daily Al-Wafd, the mouthpiece of the opposition Wafd Party, that "we have two governments, one chosen by the military council and the other selected by Tahrir protesters headed by El-Baradei. El-Tarabili regarded this as a sign of division into two counties, one loyal to the military council in Abbasiya Square and another loyal to the protesters in Tahrir Square. While El-Tarabili ruled out that El-Ganzouri would accept a government without authority and acknowledged his courage to accept such a job under these circumstances, he underlined that El-Ganzouri is not the right man now when the country is divided. He wondered whether he would be able to deal with major current problems like the major losses in tourism, the fall in exports and the rise in imports, and the shrinking size in the national store of strategic goods. El-Tarabili concluded his article by questioning whether he would bow to the demands of the present era and choose experts in order to establish a government of youth. He also wondered about the fate of the ministers who worked with El-Ganzouri when he was prime minister in the 1990s like Atef Ebeid, Youssef Boutros Ghali and Safwat El-Sherif. He did not feel the need to answer.
