Election Day Diary - Intro
I finally decided to sit down and write all I saw and heard on Election Day... beginning to end.. and be forewarned... it will be long... but hey.. I got pics and stuff! :-D
The day is 7th September 2005...
I can't tell you what time I woke up because I didn't really get much sleep. Too restless. Thinking what could happen in a few hours.
Anyway I got out of bed.. got dressed.. and drove off to the meeting place in Nasr City. I was supposed to meet a few guys and a hot gal there and from there we were to decide which polling station we were to monitor. They had supposedly scanned the area the night before to locate the polling stations in Nasr City (since they only got the names of the polling stations that day). Meeting time was 7:30 a.m. I wanted to meet up earlier because we were told and amongst the tricks that these people pull to forge, is to open the polling stations earlier than the official start of the elections (8:00 a.m.) so the monitors and party representatives wouldn't get a chance to check whether the ballot boxes were empty or not. "Oh you came late.. we already started.. people already casted votes" and shit like that. You never know really. We're in Egypt. Anything can happen.
I was there at 7:25 a.m. A few minutes later I meet up with one of the guys. A few minutes more and our coordinator shows up. She, her dad, and a couple of other chicks.
Looking good! :-D
We had two options:
1) Go to a polling station that was expected to be crowded. We could easily catch the expected "mass shipping" of people by the NDP to go and vote.
2) Go to a polling station that was NOT expected to be crowded. Here we would require a little more effort to catch any wrongdoing since polling stations such as those would probably mean the wrongdoing was happening INSIDE the secondary committee (where we didn't expect to be allowed in) probably with the consent of the heads of the committee. On the other hand, such wrongdoings were a run for our money.
Just in case you are not following: I am using the term "polling station" to mean the building/school/police station/club that was assigned to have one or more "secondary committees" where a "secondary committee" is the room/lounge/section of the polling station that would have the ballot boxes and members who would be supervising over that committee. So for example in my case I was assigned to monitor one of the three "secondary committees" in the "Nady El-Sekka El-Hadeed" polling station. I don't really care if my terming is correct. I fucking hated translation at school so I can't find a reason to do it out of school.
Anyway. We decided to go for option 1. I wasn't really into that. I wanted the big scandals. But whatever. If the chicks say so.
So we drive to "Nady El-Sekka El-Hadeed" (literally translated to "The Railroad Club").
The club had three committees. Committees 5,6, and 7. "5" was downstairs.. "6" and "7" upstairs. We all went upstairs first. Met the head of one of the two committees. He was the coolest thing. He allowed us to enter the committee and told us he will not let us stay but that we could come in and out from time to time to check on things. That was actually more than what we expected. He was safe. I didn't get a chance to meet the head of the second committee but I heard he was pretty cool too. So fine! Things were going alright!
Then we decided to distribute ourselves. I was to take "Committee 5" downstairs. The triple-chick-power would take the two upstairs. And the other guy would roam around in and out to make sure the whole place was covered.
I went downstairs. A few men and women standing about waiting for the voting to start.
Good thing about "Committee 5" was that the committee's side that was facing me was glass. It was like this ugly conference room. There were, of course, curtains on the inside in case they wanted privacy but the head of the committee, although kinda stern and mean-looking, was cool enough to keep a nice part of it open so I could pretty much see everything that was going on inside.
8:30 and the voting hadn't yet started. I was just standing there and then a guy in a suit came up to me...
-"What's that say?" (looking at my 'Election Monitor' badge)
"The Coalition of Civil Society Organizations For the Monitoring of the Elections"
-"What's that?"
"We are a neutral organization to monitor the elections"
-"What you mean monitor?"
"We make sure that nothing illegal takes place"
-"Ahhaa.. I see.. so you are with the El-Ghad party?"
(Does that mean I have to be with El-Ghad if I want to be fair?!)
"No... we are neutral.. we are not with anybody... we are not taking any sides"
-"Ahaa.. I see"
"So who are you with?"
(He pauses for a moment staring at me like he was challenging me somehow.. He seemed hesitant at first to say.. then he said in a matter-of-factly way..)
-"The National Party" (With a so-what-are-you-gonna-do-about-it look after it)
(Oppss.... I thought he was a party representative or a monitor or something... nop! I stumbled on the very person I should keep my eye on...)
A few seconds later I realized that ALL the people around me were NDP! About 11 of them.... and me :-D There were 2 guys in plain clothes. 1 guy with plain clothes but with "Yes Mubarak" stickers on his sleeves. Around 2 guys with green "Mubarak 2005" T-shirts. 2 with a reddish "Mubarak: Peace and Progress" (or something of the sort). I think 2 in suits. And 2 ladies: 1 veiled and the other totally covered in a burqa. I kept wondering which of them would gang up on me. Or would it be all 11?? Sweet! I felt like a diver swimming amongst sharks.
And so begins the day!
to be continued.................
The day is 7th September 2005...
I can't tell you what time I woke up because I didn't really get much sleep. Too restless. Thinking what could happen in a few hours.
Anyway I got out of bed.. got dressed.. and drove off to the meeting place in Nasr City. I was supposed to meet a few guys and a hot gal there and from there we were to decide which polling station we were to monitor. They had supposedly scanned the area the night before to locate the polling stations in Nasr City (since they only got the names of the polling stations that day). Meeting time was 7:30 a.m. I wanted to meet up earlier because we were told and amongst the tricks that these people pull to forge, is to open the polling stations earlier than the official start of the elections (8:00 a.m.) so the monitors and party representatives wouldn't get a chance to check whether the ballot boxes were empty or not. "Oh you came late.. we already started.. people already casted votes" and shit like that. You never know really. We're in Egypt. Anything can happen.
I was there at 7:25 a.m. A few minutes later I meet up with one of the guys. A few minutes more and our coordinator shows up. She, her dad, and a couple of other chicks.
Looking good! :-D
We had two options:
1) Go to a polling station that was expected to be crowded. We could easily catch the expected "mass shipping" of people by the NDP to go and vote.
2) Go to a polling station that was NOT expected to be crowded. Here we would require a little more effort to catch any wrongdoing since polling stations such as those would probably mean the wrongdoing was happening INSIDE the secondary committee (where we didn't expect to be allowed in) probably with the consent of the heads of the committee. On the other hand, such wrongdoings were a run for our money.
Just in case you are not following: I am using the term "polling station" to mean the building/school/police station/club that was assigned to have one or more "secondary committees" where a "secondary committee" is the room/lounge/section of the polling station that would have the ballot boxes and members who would be supervising over that committee. So for example in my case I was assigned to monitor one of the three "secondary committees" in the "Nady El-Sekka El-Hadeed" polling station. I don't really care if my terming is correct. I fucking hated translation at school so I can't find a reason to do it out of school.
Anyway. We decided to go for option 1. I wasn't really into that. I wanted the big scandals. But whatever. If the chicks say so.
So we drive to "Nady El-Sekka El-Hadeed" (literally translated to "The Railroad Club").
The club had three committees. Committees 5,6, and 7. "5" was downstairs.. "6" and "7" upstairs. We all went upstairs first. Met the head of one of the two committees. He was the coolest thing. He allowed us to enter the committee and told us he will not let us stay but that we could come in and out from time to time to check on things. That was actually more than what we expected. He was safe. I didn't get a chance to meet the head of the second committee but I heard he was pretty cool too. So fine! Things were going alright!
Then we decided to distribute ourselves. I was to take "Committee 5" downstairs. The triple-chick-power would take the two upstairs. And the other guy would roam around in and out to make sure the whole place was covered.
I went downstairs. A few men and women standing about waiting for the voting to start.
Good thing about "Committee 5" was that the committee's side that was facing me was glass. It was like this ugly conference room. There were, of course, curtains on the inside in case they wanted privacy but the head of the committee, although kinda stern and mean-looking, was cool enough to keep a nice part of it open so I could pretty much see everything that was going on inside.
8:30 and the voting hadn't yet started. I was just standing there and then a guy in a suit came up to me...
-"What's that say?" (looking at my 'Election Monitor' badge)
"The Coalition of Civil Society Organizations For the Monitoring of the Elections"
-"What's that?"
"We are a neutral organization to monitor the elections"
-"What you mean monitor?"
"We make sure that nothing illegal takes place"
-"Ahhaa.. I see.. so you are with the El-Ghad party?"
(Does that mean I have to be with El-Ghad if I want to be fair?!)
"No... we are neutral.. we are not with anybody... we are not taking any sides"
-"Ahaa.. I see"
"So who are you with?"
(He pauses for a moment staring at me like he was challenging me somehow.. He seemed hesitant at first to say.. then he said in a matter-of-factly way..)
-"The National Party" (With a so-what-are-you-gonna-do-about-it look after it)
(Oppss.... I thought he was a party representative or a monitor or something... nop! I stumbled on the very person I should keep my eye on...)
A few seconds later I realized that ALL the people around me were NDP! About 11 of them.... and me :-D There were 2 guys in plain clothes. 1 guy with plain clothes but with "Yes Mubarak" stickers on his sleeves. Around 2 guys with green "Mubarak 2005" T-shirts. 2 with a reddish "Mubarak: Peace and Progress" (or something of the sort). I think 2 in suits. And 2 ladies: 1 veiled and the other totally covered in a burqa. I kept wondering which of them would gang up on me. Or would it be all 11?? Sweet! I felt like a diver swimming amongst sharks.
And so begins the day!
to be continued.................
posted by wutever at 3:40 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home