CAIRO – Egyptians turned out in droves on Saturday to get their first taste of democracy after president Hosni Mubarak was forced to relinquish his 30-year grip on power last month in the face of mass protests. Long queues formed outside voting centres throughout the first half of the day, something unheard of in the Mubarak era, when turnout was always miniscule as voters assumed their ballots would make no difference. Hordes of voters flocked to polling stations across Cairo from the posh neighbourhood of Zamalek to the working class district of Imbaba. “Today we feel our vote can make a difference,” said pharmacy student Maraam Mohammed as she queued to vote with her mother and niece in Cairo’s twin city of Giza, site of the world-famous Pyramids.
AFP correspondents reported large turnout around the country from the Nile Delta to the Suez Canal to the Sinai peninsula. In Suez, returning officers even had to ask for more ballot boxes, security officials said. Monitors from the Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement (EACPE) reported that some voting centres had opened late because staff had been caught out by the numbers already queuing. Organisers said judges in charge of each of the nearly 50,000 polling stations had been authorised to countersign ballot papers to reassure voters following “numerous complaints” about ones that did not bear an official stamp. Arab League chief Amr Mussa, an Egyptian who is a leading contender for president in eventual elections, hailed the huge turnout as he cast his vote in upscale Garden City.
“Whether the Egyptian people say yes or no, that’s alright,” said Mussa, a staunch opponent of the transitional military governments plans to make only limited changes to the Mubarak-era constitution before holding new elections. “What is important is that people are coming. We need a new Egypt.” Just five weeks after Mubarak quit, an estimated 45 million voters were being asked to say “yes” or “no” to a package of constitutional changes intended to guide the Arab world’s most populous nation through fresh presidential and parliamentary elections within six months.
