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Letter from Cairo: Yes or No?
You might have encountered Giordano Ciampini over the past few months at Snakes & Lattes, where he is a manager. But Ciampini wears another hat—as a freelance photojournalist. After Hosni Mubarak was ousted as Egypt’s president, Ciampini decided to travel to Cairo and document the revolution’s aftermath. We’ll be sharing his stories as often as he can get them to us.
Earlier this month, Egyptians went to the polls for the first time since the fall of Hosni Mubarak.
It was a particularly illuminating experience, free votes not having much precedent in Egypt, revealing many things: how much people wanted to participate, what they wanted to see from the transitional authority, and most importantly, their views on the ballot question itself—a package of amendments to the Constitution.
Many observers, in Egypt and abroad, feel that the package of amendments are cursory at best and dangerous at worst. Though they include many new limits on presidential power, the process of devising these amendments was hasty, and most of the young revolutionaries from Tahrir Square opposed them, calling for a complete rewriting of the constitution on a significantly extended time frame.
Interestingly, the referendum voting paper contained some notable differences from the ones we’re used to at home. It included two boxes: one coloured green for Na’am (yes), with a short explanation describing the option as being “for stability”; and one coloured black for La (no) with no explanation under it. Clearly whoever designed the ballot hasn’t been given examples of the more uniform voting cards we see in Canada, which contain no colours and no explanations, only plain circles to mark with an X—or else they chose not to follow that model.
Many observers, myself included, visited a few different voting stations around Cairo. I decided to go check out Mohamed ElBaradei‘s chosen voting place, in Moqattam. Driving up to the area was perilous—winding mountain roads dominated the view until we reached just outside the military base and the view of all Cairo emerged into my periphery.
I had the cabby take me right to the main street, near the police station across the street from the voting station. As we drove up, a blue Jeep tore ass through on the other side of the road, with a bunch of people running after it, throwing rocks.
I took a peek at the scene there and realized people were running about, looking confused. A woman in western clothing was being shadowed by a mob and shuttled about by a Salafi (a Wahhabi-inspired sect of Islam that advocates for Sharia government wherever Muslims live). It didn’t take long before the mob went bonkers and started screaming things I didn’t understand, but they definitely weren’t happy.
The MPs [military police] came to the man’s aid; the woman with him had been rushed to a cab seconds before. Several officers attempted to disband the mob, brandishing their AKs whenever someone got too rowdy. Anti-foreigner sentiment was apparently high, and one guy beside me suggested I take off: “They’re calling to arrest all the foreigners in Egypt,” he said.
Being the only guy around with a whack of cameras, I got in a cab and took off in the same direction as the Jeep, and at the same speed.
I later found out that the blue Jeep was ElBaradei’s.
It wasn’t just the youth who felt that the amendments did not nearly go far enough. Mohamed Fakhoury, fifty-three, is a father of triplets who holds both Egyptian and Italian citizenship; this referendum was his first vote in Egypt. “We don’t want amendments. We need a completely new constitution,” he told me.
“I can’t believe it’s my first time to vote, and it’s for a bloody referendum! I mean, our youth were injured. Why? Why did they die, why did they fight, so we can just choose ‘yes’ or ‘no?’ And for what? Amendments to a flawed constitution? It’s not fair, and that is why I’m voting no” Fakhoury exclaimed.
And then, the biggest question: “How can you make a voice for people who haven’t known democracy for forty years?”
Meanwhile, another voter in the crowd said: “Four million voted, no? At least it’s better than 99.9% voting ‘yes’ [to everything] under the old system!”
The final tally: 41% voter turnout, with 77% supporting the amendment package. It may not be what the “no” camp was hoping for, but that’s democracy…or something that’s starting to look like it.
—Giordano
Photos by Giordano Ciampini/Torontoist.