Egypt: First Presidential Elections

this is a pure image of Egyptian revolution. Cannot recall where I took this picture from.

Results of local elections are pretty disturbing. The leading candidates of the semi-finals are: Ahmed Shafiq and Mohammed Morsi. Egyptians remember Mr. Shafiq as a former Mubarak’s minister and a “butcher” who did not do much to stop the bloody Battle of the Camels that lasted for 16 hours on Tahrir Square. Mr. Morsi is a prominent leader of the Muslim Brotherhood ORganization. People found themselves between a rock and a hard place: what to do and whom to vote for?

But why all of that happened?

Various candidates participated in the elections: socialists, liberals, religious leaders, etc. the question is: why Mr. Shafiq a pro-Mubarak person was allowed to participate in it? It clearly seems that all the efforts and sacrifices of the revolution were useless. Liberals had various candidates and no unity. They are highly disintegrated and fragmented; they did not nominate one person and voted for him, but had many leaders. This turned out to be their biggest mistake. Votes of intellectuals were divided and spread all over the place: no one got the biggest chunk. This situation is not unique: unfortunately it happens all over the world. Liberal opposition has no uniting idea and no common candidate: one and for all.

While majority of the population remains uneducated and illiterate, the possibilities for manipulation remain widely available. Imagine if someone in the mosque would tell these people to vote for a particular candidate and go to heaven or vote for any other candidate and go to hell. What do you think is going to happen? Or imagine a poor village with people barely making their ends meet, all of a sudden they receive a lot of cooking oil, pasta and rice. Who do you think they will vote for? Or let’s take Coptic Christians who voted for Shaffiq as they were scared of the Muslim rule in the country. I believe no one can blame them for that.

So I look at it and understand that Russia is not very different from Egypt: the same methods of bribery (you can basically get a vote with a bag of rice, flour, sugar (underline) in Egypt, 500 rubles in Russia) and methods of mass manipulation and intimidation during the elections. Also don’t forget about the ubiquitous propaganda and lies on television in Russia.

However, there is one good thing: people here really can not vote more than once because a finger of each and every single person is dipped in ink before the voting, and you cannot get rid of this ink for a week or so. I think this innovative method should be implemented in Russia, otherwise some individuals have a chance (and get paid for it) to vote for United Russia several times.

So the country voted. Who wins remains a mystery, but we are all doomed so far…

On Egyptian Presidential Elections

Egypt presidential elections posters and billboards.By gr33ndata

The country is facing the approaching elections dilemma. The first presidential elections in god-knows how long. People have doubts and yet are excited about this event. Some of the people I know have already prepared their ways out and are ready to pack their suitcases if the shit hits the fan. [meaning: the wrong candidate will take over and Revolution 2.0 will be on]

There are a lot of candidates running for the office, they are all different from each other and have polarized opinions on the country’s future. Among the participants of the race one might find extremely religious Salafi leader, socialist leader, moderate liberals and an ex Muslim Brotherhood chameleon [so some people believe that this candidate will turn back to the Brotherhood if elected]. Salafis are not very known for their knowledge on economy and stuff like that, yet they would like to impose Sharia laws and force veils on every woman [the biggest fear of the liberals here]. However, let’s not forget that Egypt is not Saudi Arabia and Egypt has no oil, so even if they try to impose Sharia law on everyone economic development and growth will be in question. I believe politicians cannot just outlaw the tourism as this industry brings some profit to the country’s budget.

Some other people fear that alcohol and bikinis will be banned in the country. Well, it also seems unlikely since all local alcohol producers are already in politics and their businesses are closely tightened to the political elites. So it will be highly problematic to separate the two.

Many candidates promise a lot of positive things for the society, but they don’t offer a real strategy in achieving these goals. How are they going to help the poor and make everyone equal? the answer remains silent.

Well, in the meantime, the poor are getting poorer, women rights are in question [parliament does not have that many women, Female Genital Mutilation might get legal [!] again] and Copts fear the Muslim rule in the country.

And here is a useful web site for the elections: http://www.qomra.org/en

It has some info in English and a poll on the presidential race, however, the sample is too small: only 71 people voted so far.

I might be wrong in my conclusions but this is how it all seems to me so far.

My Russian Elections in Cairo

A lot of my Russian speaking friends on FaceBook are actively discussing the past parliamentary elections in mother-Russia. There was a lot of dirt, falsifications, provocations and other sad moments. I could not observe it without having an anger attack; therefore I already had a vodka drink next to me.

Well it all seemed like a tragedy to me: people were constantly reporting on violations, some of them got detained for illegal election agitation, others for protesting against the unfair elections. My country is in agony – that’s what I thought. My country surprised me a lot with this unexpected out break of disagreement with the election results.

Elections in Russia took place last Sunday. Russian elections in Egypt [sounds sick] were held on Friday, since Sunday is a working day in this country. Being aware that I might encounter countless obstacles on my way to vote, I went prepared. I printed out the piece of Russian legislation stating that a person who was abroad for longer than 45 days is allowed to vote on elections without absentee voting certificate. Well I am well aware that russian bureaucracy is known for its bizarre and obscene rules. I even had a camera with me – just in case of some randomness. You never know …

Russian Embassy in Cairo

To my greater surprise, the local security guards let me in, they checked my documents and my bag and had nothing to say against my voting desire.

There were five people in the commission inside the Embassy, other Russians were coming in and out: people were voting. Even though I don’t have a local residency permit [it is still floating in some bureaucratic corridors of Egypt], they allowed me to vote.

On my way out I had a chat with the security guards, asked them on the number of people voted. They were friendly and told me everything I needed to know. Many people voted, how many? I have no idea. I guess everyone who wanted to vote did so. I was shocked that nothing happened to me in the Embassy and Russians there were friendly, normally I avoid any contacts with the embassy and its people at any cost.

However, it is not normal that I expect people in Russian embassy to be rude, it is not normal that I expect them to trick me and go there all prepared for a fight. Well I’d rather be prepared than go there and be defeated. You never know what nonsense they might impose on you the next second.
In the meantime, Moscow was in agony and people went on the streets. Masses disagreed with the results of unfair elections and went protesting.

It never happened before. After Mr. Putin took over the country no one could imagine this kind of protest happening in Moscow, people were rather cynical about the possibility.

And now see what’s happening. Inspiring. Encouraging

police against the protesters in Moscow by Ilya Varlamov

for more images from Moscow click here and here

Saddam – Putin parallels

Several days ago I watched a mini-series about Saddam Hussein, his family and his deeds. It is called a House of Saddam, four series made by the BBC. Here is the movie trailer:

To be honest, I am not well educated on the topic. History of the Middle East never interested me. When Saddam came to power I was a little kid and hence don’t remember much about him from the news. When 9/11 happened I was still in high school – not that many memories left either. I remember the general excitement when the US invaded Iraq, people around me openly expressed their hatred towards the States and mischievously expected Saddam to kick asses of the Americans. I have no idea why people had such a strong level of hatred towards Americans, probably it has something to do with the Cold War past and the bad reporting of the then Russian media that was able to manipulate people. Well to be honest, people still hate Americans in Russia, even thought they don’t have any particular reason for that.

Well going back to the topic of the movie. This documentary presents Saddam as a sick psycho person (which he probably was), enjoying violence and power. At the same time he is not presented as religious at all: he is never shown praying or anything like that. Strangely enough he has written the Koran with his own blood. Now THAT is sick.

However, this movie highlighted once again that any totalitarian leader cannot solve the problem of his retirement or escape. Saddam was drowning himself and was taking his country with him. Many authoritarian leaders had to face the identical dilemma: what would happen to them and their families when they retire or what would happen to them after the coup. Different leaders solve this issue in a different manner. However, it seems rather obvious that there is no solution for that.

Russian father-of-the-nation Mr. Putin is facing the similar problem. I believe that Putin is an authoritarian leader who is slowly destroying the country and society. In case Putin resigns he might easily find himself imprisoned – it is not that difficult in Russia. I believe that this is one of the reasons why he became a Prime Minister after his Presidential term was over. Well that is why he will become the next Tsar (sorry – president) of Russia. Too many things are at stake…

In the meantime, in Egypt:
Muslim Brotherhood are taking over the parliament and some of my friends are somewhat freaking out on FaceBook. Well Muslim Brotherhood has some chances of ruining the country’s economy, but I don’t believe they have enough leverage to tighten the screws and, let’s say oblige all the women to wear headscarves. Time will show…

Important update:
The US embassy in Cairo has said that future exports of US-made teargas could be blocked if the Egyptian authorities continue to use it to cause death and injury. – as the Guardian puts it

FINALLY!

Egypt: Russian media reports and a second day of voting

My mum has been nervous for me for the past week. She’s been writing me emails, demanding my calls and daily reports on the situation in Egypt. Well I understand that she is worried but she cannot really understand that everything is fine here; that I am safe.

And I was wondering why she was so nervous: there was nothing horrible going on in the country. As it appeared Russian news outlets simply fail to report the events accurately. Well Russian media simply reports a bunch of lies and misinformation. For some reason the media tries to scare people off by reporting that the Muslim Brotherhood is going to take over the country and kick out all the Russian tourists wearing bikinis on Egyptian resorts.

Well let’s see what’s happening. Russia Today is a biggest example of this kind of disappointment for me. However, it is not a surprise that the quality of the reporting is not even close to any journalistic standards: Russia Today is fully sponsored and dependent on the Kremlin, therefore, the channel obeys what the Kremlin has to declare. Here is a good article on contradicting reporting of Russia Today versus Al Jazeera while covering the revolution in Egypt.

Moving on. The one and only political show that I watch on Russian tv is called Nedelya (A week) that provides analysis of the current events for the past week. The most recent episode of this show reports on Egypt as well. This program does not have a reporter in Egypt, therefore, correspondents decided to interview some religious leaders from the Caucasus: a region with the biggest Muslim population in Russia. So these religious leaders declared that it was the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood who started the twitter/facebook revolution in Egypt. [Hmm.. interesting. My friends who go on Tahrir every day said the opposite.] Moreover this TV program scared the perspective Russian tourists that bikinis will be banned on the beaches of Egypt and even now women feel uncomfortable wearing a T-shirt in Cairo. [Hmmm… really???]

Another article in the Russian press reported that two women-journalists were raped on Tahrir square. The article also informed that Reporters without Borders (RSF) advised to stop sending female journalists to Egypt due to the countless cases of sexual harassment. Well no link to the RSF web site was provided. So I have no idea where they got this info from. NO ONE WAS RAPED ON TAHRIR. STOP THESE LIES!!!

In the meantime:

Egypt has a second day of elections. And majority of my friends here are excited.

And Something Remarkable Is Happening in Egypt:

There are four stories to be told in Tahrir: tear gas suffocation and death; extreme police brutality; incredible acts of sacrifice, and the foundation of a new social contract.

Lines waiting to vote By monasosh

people who voted demonstrate their inky fingers