Also on the second day the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights continues to watch closely the first presidential elections from a gender perspective. Women are in the forefront of the electoral scene, as women seem to be patient and persistent despite the hot summer weather. They insist on making the best out of their vote. With insisting on voting and mobilization, will women’s votes lead us to the Algerian model of the 1990s where women’s votes were affected by the religious slogans and their needs and poverty were used or will it lead us to a real democracy and ending up with a modern pioneer state and a role model. Women suffer from severe poverty and illiteracy and political forces handle women’s issues with low interest. This made women vulnerable and easy to instruct and project their votes towards religious or emotional voting, which lead to two decades of massacres in Algeria until the political forces realized that women’s participation is vital during democratic transition. In addition, women’s voting bloc is worth more efforts; therefore, women’s representation in the Parliament in Algeria 2012 reached 30 % which made it occupy the first rank in the Arab region and the 22nd in the world in terms of women’s representation.
And this is how the second day of the presidential elections went so far; relatively quiet in some polling stations and a bit overcrowded in others because of waiting in the long queues in different governorate. It should be noted that women’s participation exceeded men’s.
The Following Violations were observed:
Mobilizing Voters (male-female):
- The pattern of mobilizing voters is present for the second day of elections in the following governorates;
- In El Giza governorate; in front of Youssef El Sebaay School, Candidate Dr. Mohamed Morsy’s supporters were mobilizing old illiterate women and gave them promotion materials to vote for him
Influencing Voters’ Will (male-female):
Continuous political campaigning under the umbrella of providing voters with their prospective voter information in so many governorates;
- In Rood El Farag distrcit-Cairo, voters’ will was influenced by Candidate Dr. Mohamed Morsy’s supporters through providing voters with information in front of the polling center in Rood El Farag Secondary school for girls.
- In El Soofy Primary school in El Fayoum governorate (polling stations number 20, 21 and 22) candidate Dr. Mohamed Morsy’s supporters instructed voters to vote for him.
Logistical and Administrative Mistakes:
- In El Gharbiya governorate- Tanta, late opening in a polling station in the Ali Mubarak school because of the judge’s late arrival and was replaced with another judge to proceed with the electoral process. The same scenario happened in el Imam El Shafaay school in Tanta; polling station number 8, as the polling station was opened at 9:00 am which led to over crowdedness among the voters.
Mass Voting:
- In Cairo governorate- Rood El Farag district, in polling station number 50 in Rood El Farag secondary school for girls, it was observed that there was women’s mass voting.
Legal Violations:
- In El Tabiba village-Zagazig Center, the female head of a polling station number 19 “Sahar AbduAllah” reported to the police station a violation from a Freedom and Justice Party agent as he verbally attacked her.
- In Cairo governorate-El Maadi secondary school for girls, an observer noticed that the head judge of polling station number 14-was filling out ballots in favor of the Candidate Shaqfiq. Therefore, she filed a case of the incident.
- In El Giza governorate- El Agouza secondary school for girls-polling station number 22, the judge who was responsible for the polling station filed a case because one of the female voters refused to put her finger in the ink and a dispute took place where the female voter insulted the female judge. When the judge insisted on following the procedure and asked the voter to put her finger in the ink, so she dipped her finger in the ink angrily; therefore, the ink was spoiled on the judge’s documents.
