Egypt holds a more-transparent vote

Egypt, with its restrictions on free speech and organization, remains a long way from being a democracy. But the government made good on its promises Wednesday to open up its political system.

Unlike Egypt's last parliamentary elections in 2000, when voters for rivals of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) were beaten by the police and NDP thugs, physically restrained from entering polling booths and hundreds of opposition activists were arrested, there were few if any such incidents on Wednesday. But turnout was low, underscoring the fact that most Egyptians don't yet see a strong connection between voting and improving their lives.

In polling stations across Cairo, citizens had relatively unimpeded access to voting booths, and Egyptian political analysts projected that opposition groups, led by the officially banned but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood, would almost certainly expand their paltry share of 12 percent of seats in the 454 member parliament.

Goma al-Durgadi says the vote has gone so well that it's making him nervous. The Muslim Brotherhood poll watcher in Cairo's Dokki district looks around as voters and officials bustle about and journalists and observers come and go with nary a glance at their papers, let alone outright harassment, from security officials.

"The difference is night and day - I can't believe it,'' he says, cracking a grin. "Maybe the NDP has something nasty in store for later."

Dokki this year, as five years ago, featured a showdown between a senior leader of the Brotherhood and the NDP incumbent Amal Osman, an aging former senior government minister. Defeat for the NDP would be a major embarrassment, but Mr. Durgadi just scratches his head when asked if he has any complaints.

"We're completely amazed," he says.

Five years ago, Durgadi watched from the street outside this same polling center as it was surrounded by police and thugs who beat Brotherhood supporters until they left without voting. For much of the day, exclusive access was provided to supporters of the NDP. They would arrive on buses, and the police phalanx would part just long enough to allow them into the courtyard.

Journalists on the scene also had their equipment stolen. Photographer Norbert Schiller wrote at the time that his cameras were taken and smashed just outside the polling center by a knife-wielding mob, just a few feet away from a milling group of police, who declined to intervene.

The improvements do not mean that Egypt's elections are fully fair. At three polling places visited by this paper, opposition groups complained that votes were being bought by the NDP. In Dokki, a van-load of rural women was escorted to the polls by an NDP official, who provided them with voter registration numbers on the spot, a violation of Egypt's electoral rules.

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