Perilous Times
Egyptians riot, burn cars, claiming vote fraud
By MAGGIE MICHAEL and PAUL SCHEMM
The Associated Press
Monday, November 29, 2010; 11:35 AM
CAIRO -- Protesters clashed with police Monday, setting fire to cars,
tires and two schools used as polling stations in riots sparked by
alleged widespread fraud by the ruling party in Egypt's parliamentary
elections. The Muslim Brotherhood acknowledged it had been heavily
defeated, blaming vote rigging.
Riots broke out in several Egyptian cities a day after the voting, and
in some places police fired tear gas to disperse protesters.
Egypt's opposition says the government of this top U.S. ally was using
the election to secure a complete monopoly over parliament and prevent
dissent ahead of more significant presidential elections next year. The
upcoming vote is clouded in uncertainty, because the man who has ruled
Egypt for nearly three decades, 82-year-old President Hosni Mubarak,
has had health issues and underwent surgery earlier this year.
A coalition of local and international rights groups Monday reported
that the balloting was marred by widespread rigging after the
government prevented monitoring. It said opposition candidate
representatives and independent monitors who were supposed to be
allowed to watch the voting were barred from almost all polling
stations around the country, allowing officials to stuff ballot boxes.
Though official results are not due until Tuesday, candidate supporters
around the country took to the streets in anger after hearing word
their favorites lost.
In the southern province of Assiut, police fired tear gas at a
procession of Muslim Brotherhood supporters armed with sticks who were
carrying their candidate Mahmoud Helmi and chanting "Islam is the
winner."
Further south in the city of Luxor, backers of an independent candidate
set fire to cars and clashed with security forces. Five people were
injured and 30 arrested.
Other protests erupted in Egypt's northern Delta region. Around 500
backers of the secular opposition Wafd party clashed with ruling party
supporters in Gharbiya, and police fired into the air and shot tear gas
to disperse them. Other protesters set fire to two schools used as
polling stations in Menoufiya and burned tires outside a station south
of the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria, briefly blocking the
main highway to Cairo.
In a statement, the High Election Commission dismissed reports of
violence or irregularities during the voting, saying that the few
incidents it uncovered "did not undermine the electoral process as a
whole."
The ruling party secretary-general, Safwat el-Sherif, blamed the
Brotherhood for fomenting reports of fraud.
"An outlawed group of people is trying to stifle the positive results
of the elections by spreading rumors about the whole process," he said,
referring to the Brotherhood - though most of the rioting was by
supporters of independent candidates, and even one ruling party
candidate who lost to a rival within the party.
Defeating the Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood appeared to be
the government's main goal in the election. The group, though banned,
is Egypt's strongest opposition movement and in 2005 elections stunned
the government by winning a fifth of parliament's seats, its strongest
showing ever.
The Brotherhood's media official, Abdel-Galil el-Sharnoubi,
acknowledged that when the results are announced, his movement may end
up with almost no seats. He said none of its 130 candidates have so far
secured a seat, either losing to the National Democratic Party or
facing a Dec. 5 runoff.
"The elections revealed the real intention of the regime to
unilaterally take over the Egyptian political arena," he said.
The coalition of rights groups estimated turnout Sunday was only 10 to
15 percent, substantially less than the 25 percent turnout in the 2005.
While the government has yet to issue official figures, election
commission chief al-Sayyed Abdel-Aziz Omar admitted it was "less than
the accepted level."
Before the election, Egypt publicly rebuffed U.S. calls for
international election monitors, maintaining that its own civil society
groups were adequate to the task. The rights coalition, however, said
authorities then largely prevented even local groups from watching.
In 2000 and 2005 voting, independent judges watched the polls, but a
2007 constitutional amendment also removed them.
"We are facing violations that we have not seen in the last two
elections, when the stuffing of ballots boxes had stopped because
judges were in the polling stations," explained Hafez Abu Saada of the
Egyptian Organization of Human Rights. "This year we have gone back to
the tradition of marking ballots."