CAIRO: The few voters who participated in the second round of Shoura Council elections said that the low turnout is due to people's ignorance of the political role of the upper house of the parliament. The second phase of Shoura elections will be held over two days, Feb. 14-15 in 14 provinces: Giza, Suez, Ismailia, Behira, Sharqiya, Qaliuobya, Kafr El-Shiekh, Port Said, Beni Suef, Sohag, Minya, Matroh, Aswan and Luxor. Party-lists elections in Luxor were postponed to Feb 21-22 and run-offs are scheduled for Feb. 22. Over 25 million are eligible to vote in the second round. The first round, which was swept by the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and the Salafi Al-Nour Party in the 13 governorates where the elections were held, also witnessed a low turnout of 6.5 percent, according to the Supreme Electoral Commission. "Nothing about the Shoura Council motivates people to cast their votes for candidates that they don't know," said Megahed Mohamed, general secretary at one of Giza's electoral committees. He explained that by midday, turnout in this station didn't exceed five percent. Mohamed added that even political parties gave no attention to the council compared to the extensive campaigns that marked the People's Assembly elections. "People don't believe in the political importance of the Shoura Council. Around 80 percent are calling for its cancellation," said Councilor Abdel Mohsen Ahmed, the supervising judge at another committee in Giza. Omar El-Said, a voter, said the PA was enough for people who see it playing a central role in Egypt's politics. "Even the media coverage was meager," he added. In Suez and Ismailia, the scene was not much different. "You couldn't tell that we are having elections. Until midday, some polling stations received between 7 and 30 voters maximum," Ahmed Radwan, FJP media coordinator in Suez, told Daily News Egypt. Radwan added that the clashes that took place near the Suez security directorate two weeks ago, leaving six dead, discouraged people from voting and candidates from campaigning. "Also the former regime taught people that the Shoura Council has no political power," he said. Compared to the PA elections, Radwan explained, the scene this month was completely different. "Even the irregularities that took place in the PA elections couldn't be repeated this time. [Campaigners] used to exploit the long queues at polling stations to talk to voters and direct them to vote for certain candidates. But now they cannot do that because the turnout is incredibly low," he said. Meanwhile, Hamdy Ismail, FJP secretary-general in Ismailia, said that despite the low turnout, he was satisfied with the number that voted for this party. "The low turnout can be blamed on the media that didn't give the Upper House its fair [share of coverage] and didn't educate people about the legislative importance of the Shoura Council," he said. Ismail added that the political powers and parties were busy with the instability in the country after the Port Said massacre. Seventy-one were killed earlier this month when fans of the home team attacked the Ahly fans. Many, including parliament, blamed the security inefficiency. Violent clashes with the police ensued in Cairo, Suez and Alexandria. According to Ihab Rady, an election monitor with the Egyptian Association for Social Participation, the overall electoral scene in the 14 governorates can be described as weak. "People are fed up with the number of times they have to cast their votes," he said. Wafiq El-Ghitany, leading member of liberal Al-Wafd Party who is monitoring parliamentary elections, argued that around 60 percent of the public do not care about anything except their daily lives. Another 30 percent, he said, goes with the crowd, while only 10 percent are genuinely interested. "Egyptians are very emotional. They were afraid of the LE 500 fine that they were threatened to pay if they didn't vote. Now there is no such fine. Also religious groups, whether Islamist or Coptic, used to direct people to vote for certain candidates," he said. He said that his party is running in the Shoura elections for the first time since its re-establishment in 1978. "We thought that the ruling authority will clarify its specialization and powers. But it seems that they opened the door for the Shoura elections as a salary bonus for judges," he said. Together with the PA's 508 MPs, the Shoura Council's elected 180 MPs will select a 100-strong constituent assembly to draft Egypt's new constitution. However, numerous politicians and observers have demanded the cancellation of the Shoura Council. "The Shoura Council was invented by late President Anwar El-Sadat to satisfy his party members who didn't succeed in the PA elections and to control state-run newspapers. It should have been cancelled after the revolution," Nabil Zaki, journalist and spokesman of the leftist Al-Tagammu Party, previously told DNE. El-Ghitany agreed. "This doesn't require a whole parliamentary house. especially since it only plays an advisory role." However, Ismail slammed such criticism, saying that around the world, parliaments are divided into two houses and that's how it should be in Egypt.
