CAIRO: As Egyptians in 9 governates pour into polls for the nation's first elections since a call for democratic freedoms forced former President Hosni Mubarak out of office in February, many have celebrated the process for its successes. Amnesty International, whose delegation arrived in Cairo a few days ago to monitor election procedures, declared that it did not find any human rights violations on the first day on polling. “There were no acts of violence threatening the rights of voters during the electoral process,” said Said el-Hadady, the head of the group's monitoring team. Indeed, Egypt's first phase in the six weeks of polling for parliamentary elections got off the ground well, with only minor instances of procedural violations, which were largely administrative. Queues wrapped around city blocks, as Egyptians waited patiently to cast their vote. However, the thought of elections governed by the hand of an authority who slaughtered at least 41 of its citizens, and injured over 3,000 more just days before polls opened, is a thought that has not settled well with some in the nation. Egypt's interim military rulers, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), were met with nine days of mass protests in the week leading to elections, as citizens and activists turned out en masse to demand their immediate secession of power to a civilian authority. Their knee-jerk reaction of violent aggression set to quell the protests quickly plunged the nation into a state of sustained political chaos. After nine days of bloodletting, a ceasefire was agreed upon and observed. “I boycotted for a moral issue rather than political,” said activist Mariam Kirollos. “After what happened last week, it's a shame for us to vote under the observation of a council of murderers who don't even have the legitimacy to be carrying out elections. The revolution continues.” The vote was successful in that it illuminates the main success of Tahrir: an end to apathy in a nation hunkered down by 30 years of authoritarian rule. It showed that Egyptians themselves are ready for democracy, and it cemented their thirst for political freedoms as genuine and just. However, are Egypt's rulers, administrative inefficiency aside, ready to swallow the democratic demands of their nation? Some believe that the SCAF allowed for the polling to work as a facade of glowing success, set to legitimize their authority. “I [boycotted elections] because the SCAF is using the elections to give them legitimacy. Their pretense of democracy is a scam to divide people,” said Egyptian citizen Adam Taylor-Awny. “SCAF has lied about everything. How can we trust them with elections?” he went on. “They are anti-democratic and are using elections to delay hand over of power. I will not play their game.” Just two weeks ago, Egypt's military gave themselves carte blanche authority, free from the hand of parliamentary oversight—even after elections. They have given the nation little reason to think that they are willing to cede power in a fair or timely manner. Their term saw a crackdown on media, freedom of speech, and a disregard for due process in courts. The blood of Egyptian citizens is still wet on their hands, and these are the hands with which Egypt's ballot boxes will be counted. The military has clamped down on the freedom of assembly, killing 27 protesters gathered at Egypt's Maspero state TV building on October 9 alone, running them over with armed personnel carriers and firing live ammunition into the crowd. They have clamped down on the freedom of expression, detaining Egyptian bloggers Alaa Abdel Fattah and Maikel Nabil Sanad for expressing their criticism of the army. Alaa's transfer to a civilian court on Sunday inspired hope for some, but SCAF proved to be omnipresent in the nation's legal proceedings, and even the ostensibly legitimate civilian court's decision reinforced the fabricated charges facing the man. Likewise, Egypt's military rulers extended the detention of Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad, who is on a prison hunger strike while serving a term for “insulting the military,” in a blog post published in April. They have clamped down on media freedoms, forbidding criticism of their own authority and attempting to shut down the voices of their critics. The legitimacy of Egypt's elections depends on a timely release of individual results– and the guarantee that authorities properly count the nation's precarious paper ballots. The nation's rulers, still unaccountable for countless crimes committed over the last nine months of rule, deserve little confidence at best. BM
