“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” witnessed on Monday.
“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.
Egyptians in Cairo and the port city Alexandria waited in long queues on Monday to cast ballots for a new parliament – the start of multi-stage elections that are the first since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in February.
On Tuesday, polls opened again, but the volume of people was a trickle rather than the deluge seen the day before.
“I decided to come today to avoid the crowds,” 30-year-old Rafik told 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.”
The formerly banned Muslim Brotherhood, a moderate Islamist group, is widely expected to emerge as the largest power, but without an outright majority, when results for the election are published on January 13.
The backdrop to the vote was ominous after a week of protests calling for the resignation of the interim military rulers who stepped in at the end of Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Forty-two were killed and more than 3,000 injured.
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.The stakes are high for Egypt, the cultural leader of the Arab world – and the conduct and results of the election will have repercussions for the entire Middle East at a time of wrenching change caused by the Arab Spring.
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