CAIRO (MCT) — Defying predictions of violence and chaos, Egyptians flooded polling stations Monday to cast ballots in the first elections since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.
Polls were slow to open in several districts because judges were late or ballots hadn’t arrived, but overall, voting unfolded smoothly and Egyptians said they didn’t mind the hours-long wait because, for the first time, they felt their vote would be counted.
After a particularly fitful month that included a weeklong, deadly battle between security forces and anti-military protesters, it was uncertain right up until the eve of elections whether the polls would go on.
The Muslim Brotherhood was the council’s primary backer in keeping elections on schedule, to the ire of liberal parties who would have needed the Islamists’ backing to force out the entrenched generals. But nothing would keep the group from its moment, and much of the voting Monday looked like “a Brotherhood coming-out party,” the Islamist expert Shadi Hamid, now in Cairo, wrote on Twitter.
