Re-run is sort of fun

Egypt's re-run election for the first round parliamenatry seats was yesterday, and boy did fun things happen. Here are the results first of all: Makarem El Deiry... lost to the NDP's Mostafa el Sallab and will follow her own advice to women everywhere and stay at home from now on. Soraya Labnah....lost, again, to the MB candidate running against her. Hossam Badrawy lost to Hisham Mostafa Khalil and ended up getting a heart attack because of it. He is currently getting treated in his own hospital. It was expected, and the NDP won either way. Mostafa "Saddam is a hero" Bakry.....won, to further prove that Helwan voters aren't just social hash smokers. Ragab Hellal Hemeidah, representing the split anti-Ayman Nour faction of the El Ghad party, won, which is a further blow to Nour, adding insult to his injury. The MB is rumored to have won 29 seats, which puts their total at 33 seats so far, double what they had totaly won in the previous elections, and there is still round 2 and 3 to go. The re-run election was fun though, mainly because the candidates used new and interesting ways to promote themselves. For example, Talaat El Sadat brought 2 lions with him in a rally. Another candidate employed bellydancers to canvass votes. There are reports of candidates distributing drugs (yes, you read that correctly) to draw in votes; apparently it's the best to get the young vote out. As for violence, well, there was violence. Oh yes there was: A woman was shot and injured near a polling station in Old Cairo, a working-class area in the south of the capital, hospital sources said. Partisans overturned tables and threw them downstairs during voting in a city center district. "Observers are reporting a disturbing escalation of violence throughout polling places in Egypt," the Independent Committee for Election Monitoring said in a statement. It cited four cases of attacks instigated by supporters of the NDP, which controlled 85 percent of the seats in the outgoing parliament, and none instigated by the opposition. Wait..it gets better: In Beni Suef south of Cairo, a group led by the NDP candidate beat Muslim Brotherhood supporters with wooden clubs, it said. In Giza near Cairo several people were injured in stabbings and beatings, it added. The independent Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) said in its report: "It (the violence) went as far as assaulting voters because they did not give their votes to the NDP candidate and assaults on the EOHR observers." "In Atfih, supporters of the NDP candidate threw stones and fired shots at the EOHR observer to try to stop him entering the polling station," it said. Atfih is on the Nile south of Cairo. and more.. In Beni Sueif, 15 people were wounded when violent clashes erupted between NDP supporters and Muslim Brothers, the official Mena news agency reported. An AFP reporter said roving NDP gangs chased Muslim Brotherhood supporters in some districts of this Islamist bastion and tried to intimidate voters with bludgeons and knives. Witnesses also said that women were beaten, accusing security forces of watching on without attempting to rein in the ruling party thugs. And then there is the case of poetic justice in Imbaba, where Kamal Khalil lost thanks to the Judge who was rigging the votes himself as Alaa reported, since , you know he was there. In his post he mentioned how the people were really angry that the vote rigging was going on and wanted their permission to attack the polling station, which Kamal Khalil people declined to do. The people got so fed up though, they went and burned down the Imbaba NDP headquarters to the ground. Those people live way below the poverty line, they have nothing to lose and have been neglected for years, not to mention not allowed to chose who represents them. I am kind of glad they did it. Hearing about this brought a smile to my face. It really did. And that is all folks. Stage 1 of the elections is over. Still stages 2 and 3 to come. If they are anything like stage 1, boy oh boy that would be fun. Til then, The Sandmonkey