Results of Referendum, round ONE

The pro-Muslim Brotherhood press, and the Brotherhood itself, claim that 56% of Egyptians voting in Round One of the Referendum process voted YES.  Opposition press and parties and individuals who are against the "new regime" say that votes were stolen, the process was rigged, ballots were "stuffed" into boxes with "YES" already marked. 

In short - nothing terribly new for Egyptian election politics. 

But then again ... Egypt is indeed striking out in fundamentally new directions.  a new Constitution is being presented to the public; there are splits between a seeming majority of Islamists or pro-Islamists and "the rest of Egypt."  And the polls that I saw were filled with "real voters" - people of all "walks of life" coming out to express what they feel will be their accurately recorded vote, one way or the other.  That spirit of democracy building seems very real, even if there is pessimism about the end result: an Islamist-inspired constitution. 

Round TWO is next Saturday.  Exciting stuff!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You can't get there (Serbia) from here (Kosovo) - go to Montenegro!

Image
“You can’t cross this boundary from here [the Kosovo “border”/Administrative boundary]. You’ll have to go to Montenegro and then enter Serbia from there.” Thus sayeth the Serbian policeman at the boundary/border, yesterday (Thursday) around 3:30 pm. The reason? We had a stamp on our passports that read “Republic of Kosovo”, which Serbia does not recognize as independent nation-state (nor do a small number of nation-states of the international community – Russia, Spain, Greece, and 6 other members of the EU). “Kosovo is Serbia.” What he was proposing was for us to “re-enter” Kosovo (1/4 th of a mile back from where we came); return to the town of Mitroveca (where we just left 90 minutes ago); cut over to the West, and enter Montenegro (another 90 minutes-2 hours); then drive to the Montenegro-Serbia border (another hour); then drive until we catch up with the road we could have been on – only one hour from the point on the map where we were standing that ver...
Read more

Student blogs - check them out!!

Image
on the right side of this blog, run your cursor over the second box down from the right - you should see "Student Blogs Balkans 2012".  As students send me their URL (addresses) for their blogs, I will add them here.  the students have unique insights into much of the same thing I discuss - but then again, so much more!  Check them out when you can. While I'm "here", I'll post just two more pictures from July 9.  First, a picture of our meeting with Ambassador Rod Moore, former US Ambassador to Montenegro, career foreign service officer, and now works as the 2nd in command at the OHR - the Office of the High Representative.  OHR is essentially the "authority of last resort" in Bosnia.  We met with Ambassador Moore just after we witnessed the ceremony honoring the 520 souls who were to be buried today in Srebrenica.  Here is one more picture, below, that shows the flowers that were placed on the 3 semi-trucks, carrying the 520 coffins that were...
Read more