Cairo – The ruling party of incumbent President Hosni Mubarak dominated polling stations and, in all likelihood, the vote itself as Egyptians cast ballots Wednesday in the country’s first contested election to choose a leader.
Mubarak’s government had touted the election as a first step on the path of democratic reform in the Arab world’s most populous nation. But the sheer weight of the ruling party’s presence at the polls, as well as low voter turnout and the absence of independent monitors, threatened to tarnish the undertaking.
The results of the voting at 10,000 polling places across Egypt were not expected until Saturday.
Under Egyptian law, the vote tally must be announced within 72 hours after polls close.
There was little question, though, that 77-year-old Mubarak would easily prevail over liberals Ayman Nour and Noaman Gomaa – as well as seven other challengers – to win re-election for a fifth six-year term in office.
“It’s exactly as we expected,” shrugged a monitor at a boys’ school in central Cairo, where balloting was taking place.
The middle-aged man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was a member of Mubarak’s 1.2 million-strong National Democratic Party. Under election rules, each of the 10 political parties participating in the election was entitled to have one representative to oversee the voting.
But while there were at least eight NDP members eyeing voters and examining voter-registration cards, not a single opposition-party proxy was present.
Independent monitors were not in attendance either: They were barred under a ruling by the national electoral commission, made up of judges appointed by Mubarak.
