Before my talkative interlocutor could tell me why exactly his friends advised him not to quit his job at Exxon Mobile, his phone rang and I had the change to sneak over to the two men whom I had been observing taking notes. Unfortunately it proved rather hard for me to figure out what exactly they were doing as my Arabic is not good (at least when it comes to political vocabulary...as you can imagine referendum, election, judicial supervision of polling, constitutional reform committee and the like had not been used frequently in Egypt two years ago when I studied the Colloquial Arabic here) and their English was non-existent. Yet, other than me they were very steadfast. - Maybe that's what you become when you are an Egyptian socialist living in Mubarak's pseudo-neoliberal oligopoly, having engaged yourself as an election observer in a notoriously rigged system and now having been campaign out on Midan Tahrir since January 25th...
Persistent Marxists and queuing Egyptians
Alhamdulillah they didn't give up on me, made an incredible effort to explain their purpose to me and even invited me to join them watch their work in the polling stations. The more adamant Marxist of the two, Hussein, whose parents had sent him to the religious alAzhar school (rarely heard of a better example for parents' efforts misfiring..), was so kind to convince me that I could without any fear enter the school building to get a close up of the processes there: Upstairs men and women were queuing in two separate lines, which in Britain could not have been more neatly drawn. The line for men was much longer at that point, running around the whole corridor of the first floor, its end reaching into a classroom, where the newcomers gathered before they could start queuing. While the last men might have well waited for a couple of hours, the women were better off with their line being shorter. Many of them had already come from Zamalek, where they had first tried their luck, only to find the one polling station in the upscale neighbourhood of Zamalek incredibly crowded.
The group of Zamalek women had all come to vote NO. They thought it was time for a complete overhaul of the system, with the constitution being part of it. Also, they were convinced there was no reason to hurry. Instead giving the whole process of drafting a constitution, establishing parties and preparing elections more time and allow people to breathe a bit would be more likely to secure the revolution's achievements and fulfil people's hopes. One of the women, herself being 34 years of age and having her cute little daughter with her, told me that her daughter came with her to observe history. Being able to cast a meaningful vote for the first time in her life constituted the first tangible outcome of the Jan 25 Revolution.
Girls are making history
Yet, the ladies were worried: a lot of people, especially those with little education might go for a YES, simply because they are told to do so. Also, there was rising fear of fraud, early on, various tweeds had called on people to doublecheck whether their ballott paper is stamped – only then would it be official and counted. In many polling stations however, a large amount of the ballot papers had not been stamped. The mother of one of the Zamalek ladies had told her daughter on the phone that at her polling station only about one paper out of ten had been stamped...the number of incidences with unstamped voting paper was such that in the afternoon the supreme judiciary committee supervising the referendum announced that papers would be counted irrespective of the existence of a stamp...
While the school had been relatively calm when I arrived, more and more people were flocking in, when I arrived at the second polling station around noon, it was packed already with more voters streaming in. Twitter, emails and news reported of long queues from the morning on. In the already mentioned Zamalek school people eventually gave up, while in many other cases people waited patiently even for several hours. Having seen how many people had shown up in the (not very popular) morning hours, I found it hardly surprising that in the early afternoon the officials announced to postpone the closing of the polling stations from 7 pm to 9 pm. Later in the evening it was even announced they' d remain open until midnight.
Logistical problems and pink fingers
Left aside the lack of facilities to meet the needs of the high turnout, the whole logistics of the referendum was better than I had expected: Egyptians where allowed to vote in polling stations all over the country, irrespective of their residency. The schools were well staffed with plenty personnel to check Ids, register voters and hand out the voting papers. On the walls posters were explaining the various steps of voting, and as I had written in my earlier post an online search engine helped to find the closest polling station.
Yet, the technicalities of the eletcion process were far less advanced than in Europe: whoever showed his ID received a voting paper, his or her name was then written by hand into the register, which consisted of several huge books, the secrecy of the vote should be ensured by pieces of garment, sticked to the wall as curtains in each corner of the room. no comparison with lists of voters or anything similar could take place, the only way to ensure that one person would not vote several times was to ditch one of her fingers into pink ink.
The pink finger today became an icon of the new Egypt, and produced very creative tweeds therefore:
LamiaMoussa:This is a day to remember,isn't it? The day Egyptian men weren't only happy but proud 2 have pink on! #PinkFinger #Dostor2011
JazKhalifa: Since the revolution began i check ppls hands on the streets 4 weapons.... Today I'm checking for pink fingers (: #Dostor2011
safister: I feel so left out. I didn't take a picture next to a tank and I didn't take a picture of my pink finger. #ForeverAlone #Egypt #Dostor2011
One of the first things I encountered at polling station number I was a veiled woman, who – with a big smile on her face – held her pink finger up to me so I could see better she had just proudly satisfied her duty as a citizen. One of the last things I saw shortly before I left polling station number two, was a bunch of Christian girls and boys demonstrating and discussing with excitement the newly discovered fact that by use of the omnipresent wipers one could easily wipe off the pink ink. Soon the joke who'd go and vote for a second time would make the round...
Fear of fraud and military abuse of prisoners
Yet, to my two newly found friends who had been trained by a local NGO how to survey elections, this did not seem to come as a surprise: they had seen much worse in former elections and they were convinced that – no matter what the outcome might be - the fact that so many Egyptians (some news speak of 60% now) showed up, demonstrating their interest and awareness and their willingness to shape the country's future, was the guarantee for positive developments and steps in the right direction. The group of young Christians wasn't so sure about this, and after the observer's account of today's irregularities they seemed in doubt whether there had been any point in voting at all today.
For better or worse Hussein then also told them about the suspicious role of the military, who since last week is faced with charges of serious torture and abuse and has kept a large amount of protesters in custody since March 09. To my surprise none of this group of 10 had previously heard about the incidents. (Of course I instantly recommended them my blog to catch up with the recent developments.)
Many other people I spoke to were much more hopeful. From the many conversations I had today let me just refer three to you: At the first polling station someone (who said NO herself) noted that even if the majority voted for YES, the NO camp would take it to the streets again to push through their vision. She's got a point there, and as I was reflecting on it I realized: the reported indications and allegations of fraud or non-satisfactory logistics as well as the MB/NDP attempts to taking illegitimate influence on voter's decisions open up the possibility to devalue any result and attribute it to the failures in and unfairness of procedures.
Everyone talks politics today and many prove: Egyptians are smart
Later at night I spoke to three men working at a mobile phone shop. All of them had pink fingers and when I asked where more than happy to speak with me about the referendum. All of them had voted yes because in their opinion they country was stalled right now. In their opinion, Hizb AlWatani, the NDP, did not play a role anymore, and even if the MB came to dominate the next parliament: a new constitution drafted by a 100 member committee was in any case better than one written by the army. And if the people eventually didn't like the new constitution, they could then simply say no in the referendum on the new constitution as foreseen by amended article 189.
When we were heading away from the school, a veiled senior lady told us to go and vote. When I told her I wasn't allowed to she engaged in a short conversation with me and told me she would vote for sure NO: „Girl, I am 65 years old, we know they are cheating on us, they are betraying us and planning something, hidden under the table.“ If it wasn't for all the other smart, determined and excited Egyptians I met today, this resolute lady would have been enough to make me optimistic.
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