Egypt Elections Watch

Egypt After the Election: An Interview with Mona El-Ghobashy and Joshua Stacher

Both fresh off of field research trips to Egypt during the presidential election, political scientists Mona El-Ghobashy (Barnard College) and Joshua Stacher (Kent State University) discuss the state of the political transition on Wisconsin Public Radio's Kathleen Dunn Show. Professors El-Ghobashy and Stacher debate the election results and the prospects for a Mohamed Morsi presidency with SCAF lurking in plain sight. They also discuss the state of the revolution, the judicial system, the role of US foreign policy towards Egypt since Mubarak was ousted in February 2011. Listen in for the latest analysis ...

On Mubarak's Trial, Presidential Elections, and the Return to Tahrir: An Interview with Sharif Abdel Kouddous

In the following interview Egyptian journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous discusses developments in Egypt in the wake of last Saturday's verdict in the Mubarak trial. The interview begins with an overview of the verdict, the legal process that led up to it, and the erruption of protests in its aftermath. It then tackles the broader context within which the trial and verdict unfolded: the struggle to define the scope of revolution in Egypt. Sharif discusses the (re)emergence of Ahmad Shafiq (Mubarak's last prime minister and retiured air force general) in the context of the presidential elections and what this represents about the these elections as opposed to the ...

Egyptian Electoral Time Machine

Sabbahi To Seek Election Suspension, Cites Voting Irregularities

Hamdeen Sabbahi will file a lawsuit calling for the suspension of Egypt's presidential election because of alleged voting irregularities and a pending case over the right of former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq to stand, Sabbahi's lawyer said Saturday. Sabbahi is a leftist presidential candidate who did not make it into the run-offs by a very small margin. "We will present an appeal on behalf of candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi ... to the Presidential Elections Commission, citing a series of irregularities ... that have affected the outcome of the first round," lawyer Essam El-Islamboly told Reuters. Islamboly said the appeal, to be lodged on Sunday or Monday at the ...

Why Did Abul-Fotouh Fail In The Presidential Elections?

After seen as one of the frontfronners in Egypt's presidential race, with many expecting that he would make the runoff, Abdel Moneim Abul-Fotouh's poor showing in the as yet unfinalised results placing him in fourth place has contradicted the expectations of both observers and analysts. The failure to secure enough votes to make it to the runoffs is a surprise given that his campaign was seen to represent a cross-section of the Egyptian political powers from extreme left to extreme right in what Abul-Fotouh called the project of "Strong Egypt." Many people had expressed doubts about Abul-Fotouh and his ability to unite everybody from liberals to Islamists, ...

Unofficial Egyptian Election Results: Morsy First, Shafiq Second

Al-Masry Al-Youm has compiled a comprehensive tabulation of results from the first round of presidential elections, which ended yesterday. The Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate, Mohamed Morsy, looks set to lead Egypt's first presidential election poll following the uprising that deposed Hosni Mubarak last year, taking 5,446,460, or 24.9 percent of the votes. Ahmed Shafiq, a former civil aviation minister under Mubarak who was appointed during the president’s last days in office as prime minister, is a close second, with 5,338,285, or 24.5 percent of the votes. Nasserist candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi has surprised many observers by coming in third, with 4,616,937, or 21.1 ...

Egypt Elects its President While in Crisis

One cannot say that most Egyptians sense a political crisis. However, large sectors of activists from across the political spectrum feel the existence of a crisis in Egypt’s political scene. That is why the presidential race is intensely competitive in a manner perhaps incommensurate with the importance of the election itself. This article is an attempt to answer the following questions: What caused the crisis? How has the crisis developed in the past months? How has it been reflected in a general state of intense frustration? The Legitimacy Crisis It was not only the issue of hereditary transfer of power that caused Mubarak’s fall. In fact, the transfer of power was ...

Suez, Which Stoked Flames of Uprising, Lukewarm on Election

The first post-revolution presidential election has attracted much hype in local and international media, but that excitement was not reflected in Suez, where the first protester was killed in the 25 January revolution. During the early hours of Wednesday and up until the afternoon, polling stations across the city were mostly empty and queues were hardly visible outside polling stations. At mid-afternoon, Suez Security Director Adel Refaat estimated the voter turnout was fifteen percent of the governorate's population. However, increasing numbers flocked to polling stations towards the later hours after finishing work and before polls were closed. “In ...

In Labor Stronghold of Mahalla, Vote Split Between Morsy and Sabbahi

The city of Mahalla, which some call the "Industrial Citadel of the Nile Delta," conducted its first day of landmark presidential elections Wednesday amid a lower-than-expected voter turnout, witnesses and observers said. Mahalla is home to the largest textile company in Egypt and the Middle East, the Egyptian Spinning and Weaving Company, which has consistently been at the forefront of labor struggles and strikes. This Nile Delta city also boasts a number of other textile mills and factories. On 6–7 April 2008, Mahalla was the scene of a localized uprising against the Mubarak regime. This revolt was widely perceived to be one of the preludes to the 25 ...

Egyptian Presidential Elections, Day One: Turnout and Trends

The first day of Egypt’s historic presidential elections appears to have passed without incident. Rising voter turnout throughout the day led Hatem Begato, secretary-general of the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC), to extend voting hours by one hour to nine pm to accommodate the increasing numbers. Out of thirteen official candidates, leading contenders belong to three principal ideological fronts. The principal secular candidates include Ahmed Shafiq, ousted president Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister, and Amr Moussa, a Mubarak-era foreign minister and former Arab League chief. The two key Islamist candidates, meanwhile, ...

The Presidential Race: A Game of Egyptian Roulette

Before going to bed, I decided I was going to write an article on the presidential election first thing in the morning. I closed my eyes, and before falling into a deep sleep, I wondered if there was any use to add to the unbearably noisy pool of voices debating the elections. A group of huge, dark, and hairy mountain rats with glittering eyes invaded my house like locusts. Only minutes later, a new group of rats came pouring into the house from every window and all balconies, moving as if following the orders of some remote leader. I was thrown into a panic as I watched them move like trained dogs in a Russian circus. I realized they were indeed moving according to a ...