With Resignation, Egyptians Head to Polls for Second Round of Voting
Many in Egypt today stayed home. That enthusiasm and joy to be voting in a free election for the first time had given way to resignation, during the second round of presidential voting, which started yesterday.
That’s the picture reports out of Egypt today are painting.
Perhaps that was most evident with Hussein, a Cairo taxi driver that Ahram, the Egyptian newspaper, spoke to at one of the polls.
“Why should I vote? My vote doesn’t count and the picture is very clear - they want [Ahmed] Shafiq and they are going to make him the next president whoever we vote for,” he told the paper. But he voted and he also voted during the first round of presidential elections.
“At the time I thought we were having real elections but now I know it’s a soap opera; just like the Ramadan TV series,” he said.
This past Thursday, Egypt’s high court threw the country into uncertainty when it declared that some parliamentary elections were illegal and thus the whole parliament should be dissolved. Many also saw the ruling of the supreme court — with most judges appointed before the fall of Hosni Mubarak — as a “smooth military coup.”