CAIRO - Using only national IDs or passports, Egyptians of different ages and political affiliations voted on the constitutional amendments. The vote witnessed the huge participation of Egyptians, the majority of whom were regarded as apathetic, negative and silent. "I've lost my ID but want to have my say in the vote," Hamed el-Dessouqi, a man in his fifties, told the judge in a poll station in Hadaaiq el-Qobba, showing him his identity card from his place of work. The judge made it clear that he couldn't help el-Dessouqi or anyone else who didn't have his national ID or passport. The man left without voting. Saturday was a national holiday and the queues outside the polling stations – schools – were huge. "We voted 'No' and you must do the same," said a 67-year-old man called Abdel-Moneim, who took his two daughters with him to the polls in Hadaaiq el-Qobba. "I'm against the amendments because they give newly emerging political powers no fair chance in the parliamentary elections, thereby opening the door to specific parties or movements to seize power." Unlike Abdel-Moneim who had voted several times before in parliamentary and presidential elections, Gamila Arafat, aged 32, was voting for the first time ever. Gamila, who was standing excitedly in the queue outside a polling station in Heliopolis, expressed her willingness to help shape the future of her country. "I'm here because I don't want the blood of the martyrs of the January 25 revolution to have been shed in vain," she said. "We have to respect their lives and work hard for the best for our country." "I don't agree with the amendments," Nadia Nassar, a 48-year-old housewife who was waiting outside the same polling station, told The Egyptian Gazette. "It's the first time we have voted in the full hope that our votes won't be rigged, the first time we have voted with the belief that our votes will make a difference. I've also told my friends and neighbours to reject them [the amendments]." Following a campaign that was launched on the social networking website Facebook, Ahmed Hagag, 21, encouraged five of his friends to go and vote on the constitutional amendments. "No matter what they say and no matter whether we share the same opinions or not, the point is that each vote counts," Hagag told this newspaper, while discussing with his friends the constitutional amendments outside another polling station. The Facebook campaign, supported by prominent political, social and art figures like the prospect presidential candidates Mohamed ElBaradie and Amr Moussa and actors like Ahmed Helmi and Amr Waked, called on people to reject the amendments. It also said that everyone should try and convince at least five of his friends or neighbours to go and vote too. "I went to the polling stations and said I don't agree, I don't agree, I don't agree on the constitutional amendments," Egyptian actor Amr Waked said through his Twitter account, encouraging all his followers on this social networking website to say no too. "I absolutely agreed on the amendments," Ali Fathallah, in his late thirties, said in a loud voice, while standing outside a polling station in the working-class district of el-Matariya. "You all have to say 'Yes' sisters and brothers, because it's the only way to secure our country." In the same district, you noticed straightaway that the voting was conducted on a collective, rather than an individual basis. "I said ‘Yes'," said Amina, standing with three other women, all of them fully veiled. "We all want a new constitution but I'm against stopping our lives like this. Let's agree on the amendments and get a parliament that changes the Constitution on our behalf." Of 24 voters polled by The Gazette in Hadaaiq el-Qobba and Heliopolis, 16 said they voted against the amendments while the other eight voted for them. But in el-Matariya, it was very different. Of the 15 members of the public we polled, 11 said 'Yes' and only two said 'No', while another two refused to tell us.
