OnIslam.net

CAIRO – Waiting patiently in long lines to vote, Egyptians managed to pass their democracy test successfully in the country's complex transition towards democracy.

"The birth of the new Egypt," declared the state-owned Al-Akhbar newspaper on Tuesday, hailing the "huge turnout, free voting in a secure atmosphere".

"The people have passed the democracy test," headlined the independent daily newspaper al-Shorouk on Tuesday.

"On the road to democracy," said English-language Egyptian Mail.

Lengthy lines of voters waited patiently for hours to cast their votes from early hours in the first day of voting in Egypt'sparliamentary elections.

As the polls opened again on Tuesday, the volume of people was less than the deluge seen on the first day of elections. 

The experience was the first for many Egyptians who did not believe they could make a difference in the future of their country before the revolution that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

"I decided to come today to avoid the crowds," 30-year-old Rafik told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in the Heliopolis area of Cairo.

"It was important for me to vote because I feel it's the first time that my opinion is taken into account."

About 17 million Egyptians are eligible to vote in the first two-day phase of three rounds of polling for the lower house, which will be completed on January 11.

Under a complex electoral system, voters pick both party lists and individual candidates.

The largely successful first day will be seen by the interim military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi as vindicating his insistence that voting should go ahead on schedule despite calls for a delay.

Campaign posters for Islamist parties, such as the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), and the Salafi Nour Party and the moderate Wasat Party festooned streets nearby.

Troops outnumbered police guarding polling stations.

Power Transition

The parliamentary elections are considered the first step in Egypt’s political transformation that could loosen the army's grip on power following the January 25 revolution.

"Power will be in the hands of the political forces," Diaa Rashwan, an Egyptian political analyst, told Reuters on Tuesday, November 29.

“Real politics will be in the hands of the parliament.”

Parliament's lower house will be Egypt's first nationally elected body since president Hosni Mubarak's fall and those credentials alone may enable it to dilute the military's monopoly of power.

Others, however, expected that the elected parliament with a popular mandate could compete for authority with politician Kamal Ganzouri, named last week by the army's ruling council to head a cabinet, which he hopes to unveil by Thursday.

"There is a chance of tension between parliament and Ganzouri, and the military council, and between all three of these and the revolutionary factions in the Egyptian squares," said Egyptian political analyst Nabil Abdel Fattah.

The election was clouded by a deadly unrest last week, which claimed 42 lives following bloody clashes between protestors and security forces.

Protesters had again occupied Tahrir Square in Cairo, the epicenter of protests against Mubarak, but this time they called for the resignation of Tantawi and his fellow generals.

The demonstrations stemmed from fears that the junta, initially welcomed as a source of stability in the days after Mubarak's fall, was looking to consolidate its power and was mishandling the transition period.

The military council originally promised to return to barracks within six months, but then set a timetable for elections and drawing up a new constitution that would have left it in power until late next year or early 2013.

Head of the ruling military council Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi pledged last week to hold a presidential vote in June that could pave the way for a transfer to civilian rule.