Election Day Diary - Noon

Continued from "Election Day Diary - May the voting begin!"...

11 a.m. to 3 p.m. was the peak time. The loaded masses would just keep on coming. Almost 90% of them coming to vote for Mubarak. Not that they had any particular reason to do so. They seemed too ignorant to think for themselves. They were just told to "mark on the crescent". At some point one of the NDP supporters would gather the poor women around.

"Listen. When you go inside they will give you a paper. Then mark on the crescent on it. The one that looks like this. (While holding up a green "voter's guide" card which had the picture of Mubarak; and pointing to the crescent on it)."

The voters were pretty clueless. One of the voters came out after casting her ballot. She went to the NDP supporter:

"I made a mark on the crescent. Is this correct?" (Pointing to a marked crescent in the "voter's guide" card she had)
-"Not this crescent! The crescent on the ballot card that they gave you!! Did you mark it on the ballot card?!"
"No I thought the crescent on this card." (Smiling in embarrassment)

The incident sends me laughing and pisses off the NDP lady. She immediately goes to crisis control mode. She collects all the poor ladies around her once again and explains in more detail that they should NOT mark the "voter's guide" card. They should, instead, mark the ballot card.
"Forget this crescent! Just look for the crescent on the card that they will give you!"

The ladies nodded in robotic agreement. I doubted if they understood anything. She seemed to doubt it too and told an NDP guy to take away the "voter's guide" card so that they don't get confused between the cards!

Here is a recording of one of the NDP guys telling the voters to mark on the crescent.

The Recording

Recording: "Zay de.. 3alama zay dee....... 3al helaal da.. 3al helaal da.. 3al helaal ha"
In English: "Like this.. A sign like this......... On this crescent.. On this crescent.. On the crescent yeah."

Here is a recording of one of the NDP men complaining to a colleague after the woman complained that one of the voters had marked on the "voter's guide" card instead of the ballot card. He is complaining that the voters are leaving the ballots empty! Hehehe.

The Recording

Recording: "Mohammed! Khod ya Mohammed! Feeh zahera we7sha henna. El naas betkhosh we mebte3rafsh haga. Bettaba2 el wara2 we tetla3 tany!"
In English: "Mohammed! Listen up Mohammed! There is a bad phenomenom here. The people are entering without knowing anything. They just fold the paper [ballot card] and come out again!"

Nonetheless, there were only 6 void casts at the end of the committee's ballot counting. So I guess the majority was able to correctly follow instructions. At noon, there seemed to be no end to the "shipped" voters. They would just keep on coming. Still, I kept on counting the voters in case they tried to give some imaginary number at the end. I also started my stopwatch to calculate the rate of voting. The average was around 1 cast ballot every minute. Some voters would go in the committee and be sent away since they didn't have their names in the voter's list and didn't have the pink voting card either. I didn't count these but I wondered how the number would be if they had successfully voted too. I guess around 30% or 35% of the people got turned away.

A random shot. The guy with the black shirt on the bottom right with his back to me was one of the NDP supporters who were responsible for dealing with the 'shipped' herds of voters (or 'customers', as they would call them). The guy with the grey suit on the left (you can see his ears and he seems to be smiling) holds some position in the NDP youth committee in Ezzbet El Arab. He was one of the 'leaders' amongst the NDP supporters who were around. The guy in the center of the photo (with the sunglasses, and white turban over his head) is the Shiekh of Ezzbet El Arab. I was told that it was he who would get money from the area's businessmen in order to bring in large numbers of voters. I was also told that, in return, he would pay the NDP supporters (the guys from the NDP youth committee) 100L.E. (17.3 USD) each to manage and deal with the constant flow of voters from Ezzbet el Arab. The target was 1,000 vote casts.

At 12:35 p.m. there was a sudden confusion at the entrance of the club. I went to check it out and it turned out to be some big shot business man coming to vote. It was really funny when I saw him. The guy didn't look like he was coming to vote. He looked like he was running a campaign for Mubarak. Little did I know that another business man would soon be coming with a larger campaign. This whole elections thing is really turning into a circus. First NDP ads all around the committee. Then the messed up Voters List. Then the herd of voters shipped in by the NDP. Then some hot shot fucks running campaigns in the committee. What the hell is going on?

Take a look:

The hot shot fuck business man with his entourage. He had to take the call because .... he is a hot shot fuck business man. He came with his own photographers and everything. A note in his favour, however: The little girl was the cutest thing :) I wanted to take a pic of her banner but all the men were leaving. Nonetheless she stood very still for a while so I could take one. She stood there for me with the cutest most innocent smile :) On the other hand, where the fuck did he manage to get the asshole with shades on the left?

Another pic of the hot shot fuck businnessman with his hot supermodels on his side wearing those banners like the Miss Universe contestants. Oh and look who's there right next to him with a towel over his head! It's the guy we all love: The Shiekh of Ezzbet El Arab. Sure he'd wanna pic with the guy with the green.

The sign says: "Yes Mubarak" signed "Hishem El-Hefnawy". Also notice the crescent with a "1" inside it. The crescent is Mubarak's campaign sign (signs are used so that people who cannot read know where to mark on the ballot cards) and "1" indicates that Mubarak is the first candidate listed on the card.

To be continued.....