GIZA: Police forces prevented Tuesday Muslim Brotherhood (MB) representatives from entering the Shoura Council's mid-term election polling stations in Southern Giza, lawyer Mohamed El-Husseini told Daily News Egypt. “Security forces did not allow us to do our job under the pretext that we should have had permissions sealed by the Haram police chief,” El-Husseini, an MB member, added. According to El-Husseini, representatives of MB candidate Azzab Moustafa carried procurements officially registered by the authentication office. “We went to the police station to seek authorization and to our surprise we found the police chief and his deputy off today,” El-Husseini noted as he stood outside Koum Bakkar polling station in Faisal area. Voters who had no voting cards were sent away as well. “The police did not allow voting via national ID cards,” El-Husseini said. However, the Supreme Electoral Commission said it was not informed of any violations in Southern Giza. “The electoral process started in a quiet atmosphere. Yet some individual incidents broke out not including southern Giza,” the commission's official spokesman Ahmed Shawky told Daily News Egypt. “The commission received complaints; only 30 percent of them proved to be right; and they were handled properly,” he added. Shawky explained that, legally speaking, a candidate's representative needs either an authenticated procurement or an authorization from the police station to do his job. Also citizens can cast their votes via any official ID. MB members run for elections as independent since the group is legally banned. Meanwhile, the constituency witnessed a low-turnout where ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) candidate Youssif Khatab and Moustafa were the main competitors. Journalists were not allowed to get into the polling station, though they showed police officers official press cards issued for covering the poll. “There are no voters inside anyway,” one policeman said. Young women from the NDP were sitting on the pavement outside the polling station. They carried lists of voters' names, waiting for them to show up. “We help women to express their opinion freely,” Yasmine Farahat noted. “Most women are housewives; and they wake up late,” she said justifying the low turnout up until noon. One voter told Daily News Egypt that she elected Khattab, “because he is a good man who has always served the neighborhood residents.” Speaking on condition of anonymity, an NDP representative said he was not allowed to monitor the electoral process as he got no official permission. He was standing inside the same building of the polling station, though.
