Post-Mubarak Elections

Ahh...unpredictable Egypt.

Yesterday, rain. (Please rain goddess, don't take this random rainy November day from our two-days-a-year quota!)

Last week, the bloody battles came out of nowhere - maybe not for the in-tune revolutionary youth population, or (if I may be a conspiracy theorist here) the conniving, ruling military and police leaders. But for me, clueless as usual, everything fired up unexpectedly. When protesters stayed in Tahrir Square past sunset one Friday, the police were quick to shove them out.

Some people have blamed the rowdy revolutionary youth of stubbornly resisting, but after a few days of unrest, I think many Egyptians could agree that occupying a public square was feeble justification for releasing chemical weapons on the entire Downtown district. A pretty horrifying description of the tear gas can be found here on Bikya Masr, and that was even before the major appearance of convulsions and deaths-by-asphyxiation, including an 8-month-old baby who died at home in Assiut, a city outside of Cairo where protesters were also met with clouds of tear gas.

Some canisters shot into apartment windows set buildings on fire, and I heard accounts that protesters who scrambled into windows to evacuate residents were followed through the windows by more shots of tear gas from police. Barbaric stories like this are countless, though I can't distinguish truth from rumors without eye-witnessing it.

As promised to my family, I'm leaving the eye-witnessing to my Egyptian political activists and expat journalists...Call me negligent, or call me sane. I know my friends have all been safe, except for the usual ass-grab in crowds of Egyptian men, but I'm cautious after the dangers encountered by some Western protesters and journalists.

I couldn't always stay out of it, though. The tear gas Downtown became so thick over the days of spraying from the riot police that it even spread to my neighborhood in all its odorless, membrane-stinging horror. During the sprint from my building gate to my apartment door, my eyes, nostrils and throat were screaming and I thought, people are running out into this death cloud and enduring it to fight against the brutal power trying to silence them into submission. That is courage I can't fathom.

Then Wednesday, November 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, though fighting continued to break out on a smaller scale. But people have not forgotten what was unleashed on them.

And today, voting day, the city is quiet, unlike so many predictions. It seems the ceasefire from days ago has been largely upheld and people are letting the voting process see itself through. From what I've been reading on Twitter today (from my confined perch at my office desk), many people - ooooold people included - are voting for the first time in their lives and remarking how elated they are simply to engage in such a free process. Some don't even expect it to be perfect, this being the first post-Mubarek election.

And perfect it is not...Many are reporting blatant violations of campaign laws. All major parties seem to be handing out flyers at polling stations, chatting up people in lines, and even wearing signs while they provide people in line with comforts like benches. "Meanwhile, one voter, Fawzya Mounir from the village of Walidiya, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that a supervisor inside the polling station told her who to cast her vote for." (Al- Masry Al-Youm article)

Some other hiccups in voting today could be innocent. Many polling stations didn't even open today because the overseeing judge never showed up. Some judges were hours late, and waiting lines at polls up to 8 blocks long.

My colleague said her station was rife with catfights as women tried to push to the front of the line or boss around the volunteers manning the stations. She and her friends did their own bit of fighting by scaring away the campaigners trying to illegally appeal to voters waiting in line.

It sounds messy, but hey, at least it's happening. Let's be hopeful.