| Why your vote will make a difference |
| By Passant Rabie |
| The nation is about to venture into its first electoral experience since the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak — and it couldn’t come at a worse time. Following labor strikes, a historic plummet of the stock market and most recently, and perhaps most traumatizing, an attack on a predominantly Coptic protest march that left 25 people dead and over 300 injured, Egyptians could not be more confused.In a recent poll by the International Peace Institute (IPI), an independent New York-based NGO, 67 percent of Egyptians had not yet decided who they would vote for in the parliamentary elections. The poll, released in September, revealed a 40 percent increase in voter uncertainty since IPI’s March 2011 survey. With the doors wide open for political parties, there seems to be a new one coming out every day. But the new and shifting party coalitions are only leaving people even more confused, resulting in extremely fragmented support for political parties, with no more than three percent of respondents supporting any particular party, according to the survey. Amid the confusion, some are unaware of exactly how voting for a candidate may affect their own future because, as historic as the first elections after the January 25 Revolution may be, they are also a monumental step in determining Egypt’s future. And every vote counts. Hoping to raise awareness of this issue, Yehia Al-Husseiny and other members of the April 6 Youth Movement are traveling the country with their election awareness campaign Dayra Beyda w Dayra Sooda (The white circle and the black circle). The campaign began approximately two months ago in Mansoura and shortly after in Daqahliya; the group wants to hit all governorates to encourage people to vote and help them make more educated, informed decisions on who to vote for. “We are organizing workshops to explain what a member of parliament is, what their responsibilities should be,” says Al-Husseiny. As the campaign name suggests, the April 6 Youth team is providing information about potential candidates and encouraging people to vote for those in the “white circle,” and against those in the “black circle” — the latter being mostly former National Democratic Party (NDP) members. (In 2010, the then-ruling NDP won a whopping 95 percent of the seats amid allegations of fraud, intimidation, vote buying and excluding the votes of opposition supporters.) Initiative organizers hope to decrease the chances of former NDP members from regaining power in Parliament. They are finding out that it is not an easy task. “In Egypt, we tend to make judgments based on our emotions,” explains Al-Husseiny. “So when you come to talk to someone and say that this person is considered in the black circle, they would tell you, ‘No he is my cousin so I have to vote for him.’” Another factor that Emad Gad, an analyst at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, fears will affect people’s decisions is religion. “Islamic parties may use intimidation through religion and force people to vote for them,” he says, “the same way the NDP used violence to win the elections in 2010.” Al-Husseini agrees. “We also address the point that you shouldn’t get fooled by campaigners talking to you about religion, because that has already started to happen.” Aside from that, the response to the campaign as a whole has been mostly positive, according to Al-Husseiny. “People yearn to understand how it all works. Those from simple backgrounds react to us by saying, ‘Where have you been? We needed you during the constitution referendum.’” The March 19 referendum saw 77 percent vote yes for nine amended articles of the Constitution, most of them related to eligibility of presidential candidates. The referendum results also stipulated that a new constitution be drafted following the election of a new Parliament. “The parliament has one role and one role only: to write the constitution,” says Gad. “It is the most important thing because it determines the future of this country.” The results of the March referendum effectively suspended the 1971 constitution, and the nation is now waiting on the future elected members of parliament to draft a new one. For a new constitution to be drafted, it has to first be requested by at least half of the members of both houses of Parliament — the People’s Assembly and the Shura Council. Following that request, 100 members of parliament will be elected by the house to draft the new constitution within six months and then submit it for another referendum. Aside from their initial task of writing the constitution, members of parliament (MPs) will continue to play a deciding role over the long run, with the incoming class crafting crucial legislation for the upcoming transitional period. Prior to the revolution, the parliament used to be a rubber stamp for the NDP agenda, but Egyptians are now getting the chance to choose MPs they feel will truly represent their interests. As Gad puts it, “Whoever is elected into parliament will pretty much determine the direction of where this country is going.” Al-Husseiny sees a difficult task ahead. “God be with us. People are fed up with the current situation we’re in, they are tired and upset and they just want the hard times to pass.” |
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