.

NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Elections in Egypt

This candidate for the Egyptian Parliament was assigned a school bus as her symbol as
a way to help illiterate Egyptians cast their votes.


Egyptian voters go bananas . . . and Viking ships & soccer balls


Think about it.  From 6000 BC to today no Egyptian has ever cast a vote in a free election.  8000 years and no freedom. . . . till this week.  Now Egyptians are lining up for hours for the right to cast their vote.  This is a moment in history.

That being said, Egypt has special problems in this election.  Illiteracy is one.  Likening one’s political party to a banana or a toothbrush might not be a recognized way to sway voters in the West, but has been widely used in Egypt since the 1950s.

And as Egyptians head to the polls today to select their country’s parliament, they are partly making their decisions based on the weird emblems.

Each of the 250 symbols represent a different political party and helps illiterate voters mark their ballot papers correctly. More than 50 per cent of Egypt's population are illiterate, reports the UK Daily Mail.

Some parties aim to vacuum away the residue of Egypt’s old regime with the symbol of a Hoover, while one female MP has used a rocket as her symbol – which means ‘hottie’ in colloquial Egyptian slang.

Other animated figures include tanks, traffic lights, cameras, bottled water, grapes and even the almighty Egyptian pyramids.

The unusual system was brought about in 1950 and was used in the election of Egypt’s second president Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, who ruled from 1956 until his death in 1970.

In the 1950s only 30 symbols were used to represent each MP but today more than eight times that amount is needed.

The recognizable objects are decided upon by the Supreme Elections Commission and are then randomly assigned to those in the running to be elected.   (UK Daily Mail)  

The symbols of Egyptian politics: Voters chose which MP to vote for with the help of these recognizable symbols.

Ballot papers are displayed at a polling station in Garden City, Cairo, showing the random symbols

A winner?  This candidate was assigned a banana as his symbol.


No comments: