Kodak Agfa Presents : Spring Flowers Fair 2018 “Elections , Selfies and flowers”

And I am avoiding all that useless debate about Syria currently because I am too angry of that hypocrisy in this world so I will stick to photography and spring.
It is that time of the year where Kodak Agfa studio proudly presents Egypt’s Spring Flowers Fair 2018
I went to my favorite Spring Flowers Fair 2018 to enjoy a good spring weather with a breeze of beautiful flowers’ smell. I went

A beautiful pink rose at the Spring Flowers Fair 2018

at the beginning of the Fair which was inaugurated on the 10th March.
Elections campaigning and flowery arcs at Egypt's Spring Flowers Fair 2018
I used to go on working days in the past but this year I went on Saturday during the weekend for most Egyptians in Cairo.

Initially, I did not intend to go to the fair on that day. I planned to visit Aisha Fahmy palace in Zamalek to see the Special Fabric exhibit that will end this month. There, I was told by security that I could not use my professional camera inside except after taking a permit from the ministry of culture’s department of something. I can only use my mobile phone camera.
Determinant to use my professional camera on that day, I headed to Orman botanical to spend a couple of hours at the Spring Flowers Fair 2018.

Beautiful purple daisies at the fair 

The ministry of agriculture understood that it can get extra revenue with extra fees and I can’t blame them.
The Spring Flowers Fair 2018 was fully packed that Saturday afternoon to the level that you could not park your car inside Orman botanical part because the parking area inside it was full.

Visitors visiting the fair 

Families from all social backgrounds, university students, Egyptians and foreigners were all there whether to buy nice plants and flowers or enjoy a good spring view or for the sake of selfies.

A family visiting the fair 

Beside the huge crowd, the fair echoed the March of Presidential elections.
There were banners hanged calling the people to vote in the Presidential elections.

Seen in Giza : Egypt's Renaissance statue

Seen in Giza: Egypt’s Renaissance statue stands high in the square named after it in Giza. The statue was made by sculptor Mahmoud Mokhtar in 1928.
This is the most famous statue in Modern Egypt.
The father of modern sculpture in Egypt, Mahmoud Mokhtar wanted to symbolize Egypt after its independence from the UK in 1922. The Sphinx representing the past and besides a young Egyptian peasant lifting up her veil.
The statue was originally placed at Ramsis square but it was moved later to be beside Cairo University and Giza Zoo. 

Seen in Cairo : Tahrir's Cleopatra hotel renovated

Seen in Cairo: Cleopatra Hotel in Cairo’s Tahrir square which is under current renovation according to what I have read today.
Surprisingly and contrary to what I thought, Cleopatra hotel is not closed and is actually operating.It has got a page in booking.com.
Inaugurated in 1962, it has got 82 rooms according to its profile in its mother company EGOTH.
The State-owned tourism company is leasing the hotel to an Egyptian-Saudi company called "Arkan" to operate it.

Egypt’s Presidential elections 2018 in graph : Let the numbers speak facts

On Monday, Egypt’s National Elections Authority announced the final and official results of the March Presidential elections 2018.
Incumbent President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi was elected unsurprisingly in a landslide victory with 97% of the valid votes in a-41.5%-turnout.

His rival, the leader of Ghad Party Moussa Moussa got 2.92%  of the total votes.
For the second presidential elections in a row, the spoilt votes come in the second place right after Sisi with 1,762,231 votes or 7.27% of the total votes.
It is worth to mention that the number of eligible voters increased from 53,909,306 in Presidential elections 2014 to become 59,078,138 normally.

Now the NEA, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Pro-regime media are claiming that there was a huge turnout thanking Egyptians inside and outside for once again proving to the world that they supported the current president.

Inside an Egyptian presidential elections polling station in Giza 

Well numbers, the official numbers released by the NEA says a different story; especially when compared with presidential elections 2014 and presidential elections 2012 which were released by NEA’s predecessor the High Elections committee
Let’s see my dear readers what the official numbers say.

First of all
Here is El-Sisi Vs. Moussa’s graph

Al Masry Al Youm and Masr Al Arabia's fines : Again Journalism is not crime in Egypt "Updated"

In a new escalation for the dramatic events that have been taken place in Egypt’s most famous independent and privately Newspaper since the third day of the presidential election , the editor in chief of Al Masry Al Youm Mohamed El-Siyad Saleh was dismissed from his position by the chairman of the daily paper’s board and its managing director on Thursday.

Saleh was dismissed over a headline published in the front page of the newspaper by none other than Abdel Moneim Saeed and Abdel Latif Al-Manawy ,the two famous Pro-Mubarak/Pro-Sisi’s media figures.

Abdel Moneim Saeed has also ordered the newspaper not to publish anymore any op-eds for writer Abdel Nasser Salama.

The famous Pro-Mubarak writer has been very critical to Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in the past couple of years.

Those orders by Saeed were issued following a sudden slowness in the official website of the newspaper on Wednesday.

People who understand in Networks say that someone lowered its bandwidth. Other are saying that Egypt's biggest independent and privately owned newspaper is on the verge of being blocked in Egypt !!

All of that happened because of a headline some did not like.

Sunday afternoon, Egypt’s High Media Council fined Daily Al Masry Al Youm “AMAY” LE 100,000 for allegedly publishing misleading news as referring its editor in chief and one of the reporters to an investigation at the Journalists Syndicate in Cairo.

The High Media Council which is led by veteran pro-regime journalist Makram Mohamed Ahmed also ordered the newspaper to apologize to the National Elections Authority in the daily newspaper itself.

All that happened because AMAY published on its first page in the edition of Wednesday’s issue a news with the headline saying the following in Arabic ( الدولة تحشد الناخبين اخر ايام الانتخابات) or “The state mobilizes the voters in the last day of the elections”.

The issue with the headline that caused trouble

It seems the headline and the news itself did not like some VIPs did not like the title or the news because the AMAY editorial team decided to change to remove from the first page as well the AMAY’s website and its cache !!

Voting girl 2018 : Notes about Egypt's Presidential Elections 2018

Another dispatch from Cairo, the land of pharaohs and elections.
Earlier Friday, Egypt’s National Elections Authority “NEA” announced that no one has presented any appeal or objection against the elections.
Thus on 2 April, the NEA will announce Current president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as the winner of the 2018 presidential race in the non-surprising news.
According to the unofficial preliminary results leaked from the NEA and Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s official campaign, the current president comes in the first place by 92% of the votes, the spoilt votes in the second place by 5% and Moussa Moussa in the third place by 3%.
Estimations of the turn out speak about over 40% of eligible votes “59 million votes”
This is the second consecutive presidential elections in a row to have the spoilt vote in the second place.
In the 2014 Presidential elections between Sisi and Hamdeen Sabhi, also the spoiled votes came in the second place by 4.07%
Needless to say, the fact that we have spoiled votes more than El-Sisi’s opponent in the Presidential elections say a lot especially  with all the attempt to mobilize people to head to the polling stations
At 9 PM Wednesday, Egyptian Presidential elections 2018 concluded in a dramatic way as the NEA extended it for another hour whereas a huge sandstorm was hitting the country.

A lady snapping a photo of her old mother casting her vote in the presidential elections 2018

This post includes my testimony on the second day and third day as well a more detailed day one of the Egyptian presidential elections 2018.
The first post about the Egyptian presidential elections is brief as I was tired and God knows that I am still tired thanks to our dusty Egyptian spring and sinusitis.
You can see a very short summary of that election in the video here. It is too short and I mock how the mainstream media covered the elections. It is different as you can than previous reports about elections since 2011.

First of all, I did not vote in the Egyptian presidential elections 2018 because it is actually a referendum.
It is a setback to the old days and continuing old tradition of the 99.999% yes to the leader referendums that started in the days of Nasser.