After 12 hours from now Cairo local time, the polling stations will open its doors for more than 50 million eligible voters kicking off the 2018 Presidential elections inside Egypt which all the world knows its result in advance: an overwhelming victory for President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
The Egyptian armed forces units have been deployed the polling stations, mostly at schools around the country. The Egyptian army has been securing the Election process in Egypt since 2011.
Anyhow now the Egyptian Pro-regime mainstream media and social media have been doing something hysterically in the past few days especially in the past 24 days: Encouraging people to vote at the polling station in order to have a high turnout.
Egyptians know very well that Sisi is going to win these elections so there is fear that they may not stand in queues like in past presidential elections.
TV hosts are calling people to go and to vote in order to prove to the world that they are behind Abdel Fattah El-Sisi despite logically and theoretically speaking a high turnout does not mean those people will choose Sisi because they can choose that other guy whom most of the public ignore and foreign media ridicules.
WhatsApp messages and Facebook pages and posts are shared that Abdel Fattah El-Sisi does not only have one rival or nemesis that he has to beat but he has got other nemeses like Israel “despite having officially and unofficially excellent relations with Israel” , United States of America “despite official statements that we are having eternal strategic relations with the US especially with Trump’s administration” , Qatar “because of course it should be there”, Turkey “because of Erdogan”, the Muslim Brotherhood “Naturally” and Iran “oh yeah !!”
That post went viral in the past 48 hours.
Now some pro-government TV hosts and journalists are saying that there are too many polling stations and thus we won’t notice long queues like before.
Technically speaking queues are not expected in early Morning on Monday because it is a busy business day. People are expected to show up later in the afternoon or evening.
Needless to say, there is a new level of incentive to make people show up at the polling station.
Dream Park, the famous and biggest amusement park in Egypt presents a 50% discount on its tickets for those who vote on condition that they still have election ink on their finger !!
Dream Park advertisement took half the Front page of Al-Ahram Daily newspaper on Sunday in Colors, which means more than LE 150,000 !!
There is a rumor that Carrefour is having 50% discount on its merchandise except for electrical appliances if people go to vote and take a selfie with the ballot paper which is actually banned.
On the other hand a group of Egyptian activists launched online a campaign “Do not go out” and “Your vote is needless” in Arabic on Twitter calling voters to boycott the Presidential elections listing many reasons starting from the fact all true presidential candidates have vanished to human rights violations to wrong economic decisions taken in the past 4 years.
I do not know which group will succeed tomorrow in the high turnout battle: The regime and its supporters or the activists
Will people go to polling stations and we will have a high turnout or they won’t go to the polling stations and we will have a low turnout !?
In few hours we will know.
The Egyptian armed forces units have been deployed the polling stations, mostly at schools around the country. The Egyptian army has been securing the Election process in Egypt since 2011.
Anyhow now the Egyptian Pro-regime mainstream media and social media have been doing something hysterically in the past few days especially in the past 24 days: Encouraging people to vote at the polling station in order to have a high turnout.
Egyptians know very well that Sisi is going to win these elections so there is fear that they may not stand in queues like in past presidential elections.
TV hosts are calling people to go and to vote in order to prove to the world that they are behind Abdel Fattah El-Sisi despite logically and theoretically speaking a high turnout does not mean those people will choose Sisi because they can choose that other guy whom most of the public ignore and foreign media ridicules.
WhatsApp messages and Facebook pages and posts are shared that Abdel Fattah El-Sisi does not only have one rival or nemesis that he has to beat but he has got other nemeses like Israel “despite having officially and unofficially excellent relations with Israel” , United States of America “despite official statements that we are having eternal strategic relations with the US especially with Trump’s administration” , Qatar “because of course it should be there”, Turkey “because of Erdogan”, the Muslim Brotherhood “Naturally” and Iran “oh yeah !!”
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| A pro-Sisi billboard |
Now some pro-government TV hosts and journalists are saying that there are too many polling stations and thus we won’t notice long queues like before.
Technically speaking queues are not expected in early Morning on Monday because it is a busy business day. People are expected to show up later in the afternoon or evening.
Needless to say, there is a new level of incentive to make people show up at the polling station.
Dream Park, the famous and biggest amusement park in Egypt presents a 50% discount on its tickets for those who vote on condition that they still have election ink on their finger !!
 |
| The ad in Al-Ahram Daily on 25 March |
There is a rumor that Carrefour is having 50% discount on its merchandise except for electrical appliances if people go to vote and take a selfie with the ballot paper which is actually banned.
On the other hand a group of Egyptian activists launched online a campaign “Do not go out” and “Your vote is needless” in Arabic on Twitter calling voters to boycott the Presidential elections listing many reasons starting from the fact all true presidential candidates have vanished to human rights violations to wrong economic decisions taken in the past 4 years.
I do not know which group will succeed tomorrow in the high turnout battle: The regime and its supporters or the activists
Will people go to polling stations and we will have a high turnout or they won’t go to the polling stations and we will have a low turnout !?
In few hours we will know.
Thanks for the update. More info then the Russia Presidential Elections, other than photos of multiple ballots being smuggled out :)
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