Egyptians vote in first free presidential election

An Egyptian woman votes during the first day of the presidential election in a polling station in Alexandria, Egypt

CAIRO (AP) -- More than 15 months after autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak's ouster, Egyptians streamed to polling stations Wednesday to freely choose a president for the first time in generations. Waiting hours in line, some debated to the last minute over their vote in a historic election pitting old regime figures against ascending Islamists.

A sense of amazement at having a choice in the Arab world's first truly competitive presidential election pervaded the crowds in line. So did the fervent expectation over where a new leader will take a country that has been in turmoil ever since its ruler for nearly 30 years was toppled by mass protests.

Some backed Mubarak-era veterans, believing they can bring stability after months of rising crime, a crumbling economy and bloody riots. Others were horrified by the thought, believing the "feloul" - or "remnants" of the regime - will keep Egypt locked in dictatorship and thwart democracy.

Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, saw their chance to lead a country where they were repressed for decades and to implement their version of Islamic law. Their critics recoiled, fearing theocracy.

"You can't tell me, 'Vote for this or else you're a sinner!'" Wael Ramadan argued with another man in line at a polling station in the impoverished Cairo neighborhood of Basateen. "We never said that," protested the man. "Yes, you did," Ramadan shot back.

"The revolution changed a lot. Good things and bad things," Ramadan, a 40-year-old employee at a mobile phone company, said afterward. "The good thing is all this freedom. We are here and putting up with the trouble of waiting in line for electing a president. My vote matters. It is now a right ... Now we want a president that has a vision."

A field of 13 candidates is running in the voting Wednesday and Thursday. The two-day first run is not expected to produce an outright winner, so a runoff between the two top vote-getters will be held June 16-17. The winner will be announced June 21. Around 50 million people are eligible to vote.

An Islamist victory will likely mean a greater emphasis on religion in government. The Muslim Brotherhood, which already dominates parliament, says it won't mimic Saudi Arabia and force women to wear veils or implement harsh punishments like amputations. But it says it does want to implement a more moderate version of Islamic law, which liberals fear will mean limitations on many rights.

Many of the candidates have called for amendments in Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which remains deeply unpopular. None is likely to dump it, but a victory by any of the Islamist or leftist candidates in the race could mean strained ties with Israel and a stronger stance in support of the Palestinians in the peace process. The candidates from the Mubarak's regime - and, ironically, the Brotherhood, which has already held multiple talks with U.S. officials - are most likely to maintain the alliance with the United States.

The real election battle is between four front-runners.

The main Islamist contenders are Mohammed Morsi of the powerful Brotherhood and Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, a moderate Islamist whose inclusive platform has won him the support of some liberals, leftists and minority Christians.

The two secular front-runners are both veterans of Mubarak's regime - former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq and former foreign minister Amr Moussa.

A major worry is whether either side will accept ultimate victory by the other. Many Islamists have warned of a new wave of protests if Shafiq wins, saying his victory could only come from fraud.

So far, there were only a few reports of overt violations of election rules Wednesday, mainly concerning candidates' backers campaigning near polling stations. Three international monitoring organizations, including the U.S.'s Carter Center, were observing the vote. Former President Jimmy Carter, the center's head, visited a polling station in the ancient Cairo district of Sayeda Ayesha.

"You know, there is no such thing as a perfect election," U.S. Congressman David Dreier of California said at a polling center. "But I'm convinced that there is a great degree of sincerity on the part of those that are putting this together."

The election's winner will face a monumental task. The economy has been sliding as the key tourism industry dried up - though it starting to inch back up. Crime has increased. Labor strikes have proliferated.

"May God help the new president," said Zaki Mohammed, a teacher in his 40s as he waited to vote in a district close to the Giza Pyramids. "There will be 82 million pairs of eyes watching him."

And the political turmoil is far from over. The military, which took power after Mubarak's fall on Feb. 11, 2011, has promised to hand authority to the election winner by the end of June. But many fear it will try to maintain a considerable amount of political say. The fundamentals of Mubarak's police state remain in place, including the powerful security forces. The generals have said they have no preferred candidate, but they are widely thought to be favoring Shafiq, a former air force commander.

"We will have an elected president but the military is still here and the old regime is not dismantled," said Ahmed Maher, a prominent activist from the group April 6, a key architect of last year's 18-day uprising against Mubarak.

"But the pressure will continue. We won't sleep. People have finally woken up. Whoever the next president is, we won't leave him alone," he said outside a Cairo polling center.

Moreover, the country must still write a new constitution. That was supposed to be done already, but was delayed after Islamists tried to dominate the constitution-writing panel, prompting a backlash that scuttled the process for the moment.

The Muslim Brotherhood is hoping a Morsi victory in the presidency will cap their political rise, after parliament elections last year gave them nearly half the legislature's seats.

In the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, microbuses run by the Brotherhood ferried women supporters to the polls in the poor neighborhood of Abu Suleiman, one of the group's strongholds. The women, in conservative headscarves or covered head to toe in black robes and veils that hid their faces, filed into the station.

"I want to give the Brotherhood a chance to rule," said Aida Ibrahim, a veteran Brotherhood member who was helping voters find their station. "If it doesn't work, they will be held accountable," she said.

Some Brotherhood supporters cited the group's years of providing charity to the poor - including reduced-price meat, and free medical care. "Whoever fills the tummy gets the vote," said Naima Badawi, a housewife sitting on her doorstep watching voters in Abu Sir, one of the many farming villages near the Pyramids being sucked into Cairo's urban sprawl.

But some who backed the Brotherhood in the parliament election late last year have since been turned off.

"They failed," said Mohammed Ali, in the neighboring Talbiya district. He's gone clear the other direction for this vote: "I am feloul" - pro-Mubarak "remnant," he said. "I don't care. I want a man who is a politician and statesman."

The secular young democracy activists who launched the anti-Mubarak uprising have been at a loss, with no solid candidate reflecting their views.

In Cairo, 27-year-old Ali Ragab said he was voting for a leftist candidate, Hamdeen Sabahi - because the poor "should get a voice," but he admitted Sabahi didn't stand much of a chance.

He said his father and all his father's friends were backing Shafiq "because they think he's a military man who will bring back security. I'm afraid Shafiq would mean another Mubarak for 30 more years."

For most of his rule, Mubarak - like his predecessors for the past 60 years - ran unopposed in yes-or-no referendums. Rampant fraud guaranteed ruling party victories in parliamentary elections. Even when Mubarak let challengers oppose him in 2005 elections, he ended up not only trouncing his liberal rival but jailing him.

The election comes less than two weeks before a court is due to issue its verdict on Mubarak, 84, who has been on trial on charges of complicity in the killing of some 900 protesters during the uprising. He also faces corruption charges, along with his two sons, one-time heir apparent Gamal and wealthy businessman Alaa.

The feeling of being able to make a choice was overwhelming for some voters.

"I might die in a matter of months, so I came for my children, so they can live," a tearful Medhat Ibrahim, 58, who suffers from cancer, said as he waited to vote in a poor district south of Cairo. "We want to live better, like human beings."

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Egypt soccer violence kills 74, fans turn on army

Egypt soccer violence kills 74

(Reuters) - Seventy-four people were killed when supporters clashed at an Egyptian soccer match, prompting fans and politicians on Thursday to turn on the ruling army for failing to prevent the deadliest incident since Hosni Mubarak was ousted.

At least 1,000 people were injured in the violence on Wednesday when soccer fans invaded the pitch in the Mediterranean city of Port Said, after local team al-Masry beat visitors from Cairo, Al Ahli, Egypt's most successful club.

Angry politicians denounced the lack of security at the match and accused military leaders of allowing, or even causing, the fighting. The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that dominates parliament, saw an "invisible" hand at work.

The city's streets were quiet at dawn, with few police or army officers in sight.

"The military council wants to prove that the country is heading towards chaos and destruction. They are Mubarak's men. They are applying his strategy when he said 'choose me or choose chaos'," said Mahmoud el-Naggar, 30, a laboratory technician and member of the Coalition of the Revolutionary Youth in Port Said.

"Down with military rule," thousands of Egyptians chanted at the main Cairo train station where they met injured fans returning from what one minister said was the scene of Egypt's worst soccer disaster.

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the state television building and marches across the capital were planned.

Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, 76, who heads the ruling military council, took an unusual step of speaking by telephone to a television channel, the sport broadcaster owned by Al Ahli, vowing to track down the culprits. The army announced three days of national mourning.

"I deeply regret what happened at the football match in Port Said. I offer my condolences to the victims' families," Tantawi said in comments broadcast on state television.

It did little to assuage the anger of fans, who, like many Egyptians, are furious that Egypt is still plagued by lawlessness and frequent bouts of deadly violence almost a year after Mubarak was driven out and replaced by an army council.

As with past flare-ups, it quickly turned political. Parliament will hold an emergency session later on Thursday to discuss the violence.

"The people want the execution of the field marshal," fans chanted at the station. "We will secure their rights, or die like them," they said as covered bodies were unloaded from the trains.

ENRAGED

The post-match pitch invasion provoked panic among the crowd as rival fans fought. Most of the deaths were among people who were trampled in the crush of the panicking crowd or who fell or were thrown from terraces, witnesses and health workers said.

Television footage showed some security officers in the stadium showing no sign of trying to stop the pitch invasion. One officer was filmed as people poured onto the field, talking on a mobile phone.

"The rush caused a stampede, people were pushing each other against the metal door and stepping on each other," said one witness who attended the match, 23-year-old Ossama El-Zayat.

"We saw riot police firing shots in the air, and then everyone got scared and kept pushing against the locked door. We didn't know whether police were firing live rounds or not. People were crying and dying," he said.

Several enraged politicians and ordinary Egyptians accused officials who are still in their jobs after the fall of Mubarak of complicity in the tragedy, or at least of allowing a security vacuum that has let violence flourish in the past 12 months.

"The security forces did this or allowed it to happen. The men of Mubarak are still ruling. The head of the regime has fallen but all his men are still in their positions," Albadry Farghali, a member of parliament for Port Said, screamed in a telephone call to live television.

Some saw the violence as orchestrated to target the "Ultras," Al Ahli's dedicated fans whose experience confronting police at soccer matches was turned with devastating effect against Mubarak's heavy-handed security forces in the uprising.

They played a significant role in defending Cairo's Tahrir Square, the heart of the uprising against Mubarak, when men on camels and horses charged protesters last year. Thursday is the anniversary of the notorious February 2 camel charge.

"All that happened is not for the sake of a game. It's political. It was orchestrated by the military council to target the Ultras," said Abdullah el-Said, a 43-year-old driver in Port Said. "The military council wanted to crush the ultras because they sided with protesters ever since the revolution began."

Yet many Egyptians still see the army as the only guarantor of security. When one activist in group outside a hospital accused the army of sowing chaos, a man chimed in blaming the youths: "Security has to return to the streets. Enough with all those protests that caused this security vacuum," he yelled.

The Brotherhood, whose Freedom and Justice Party won the biggest bloc in parliament, blamed an "invisible" hand for causing the violence and said the authorities were negligent.

"We fear that some officers are punishing the people for their revolution and for depriving them of their ability to act as tyrants and restricting their privileges," it said.

'THUGS'

Others blamed "thugs," the hired hands or plain clothes police officers in Mubarak's era who would often emerge from police lines to crush dissent to his rule.

"Unknown groups came between the fans and they were the ones that started the chaos. I was at the match and I saw that the group that did this is not from Port Said," said Farouk Ibrahim.

"They were thugs, like the thugs the National Democratic Party used in elections," he said, referring to Mubarak's former party and the polls that were routinely rigged in its favor.

The two soccer teams, al-Masry and Al Ahli, have a history of fierce rivalry. Witnesses said fighting began after Ahli fans unfurled banners insulting Port Said and one descended to the pitch carrying an iron bar at the end of the match.

Al-Masry fans poured onto the pitch and attacked Al Ahli players before turning to attack rival supporters.

"I saw people holding machetes and knives. Some were hit with these weapons, other victims were flung from their seats, while the invasion happened," Usama El Tafahni, a journalist in Port Said who attended the match, told Reuters.

Many fans died in a subsequent stampede, while some were flung off their seats onto the pitch and were killed by the fall. At the height of the disturbances, rioting fans fired flares straight into the stands.

Television footage showed fans running onto the field and chasing Al Ahli players. A small group of riot police formed a corridor to protect the players, but they appeared overwhelmed and fans were still able to kick and punch players as they fled.

Hospitals in the Suez Canal zone were put on alert and dozens of ambulances were sent from the cities of Ismailia and Suez, said an official in the zone's local ambulance service.

Tantawi said a fact-finding committee would be set up and pledged that the army's plan to hand over power to civilians would not be derailed. The army has promised to go back to barracks by the end of June after a presidential election.

"Egypt will be stable. We have a roadmap to transfer power to elected civilians. If anyone is plotting instability in Egypt they will not succeed," he told Al Ahli's channel.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said 47 people were arrested. Egypt's football federation said it was indefinitely delaying matches for the Egyptian premier league. Al Ahli club said in a statement it was suspending all sports activities and holding three days of mourning.

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Woman beaten by Egyptian troops in Tahrir Square

A Woman is being beaten by Egyptian troops

Washington has described the treatment of female protesters in Egypt as "shocking" and a "disgrace" after footage emerged of troops ripping off a woman's clothing and beating her.

Clashes between security forces and demonstrators demanding an immediate end to military rule, are continuing in the capital Cairo, overshadowing parliamentary elections which are taking place.

At least thirteen people have been killed since Friday.

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Egypt: American Tear Gas, Policy Loom Over Tahrir Square

Cairo, Egypt

CAIRO -- At the foot of Mohamed Mahmoud Street, just a few feet from the resounding crowds in Tahrir Square, a group of people gathered around a man holding four canisters above his head.

"Tear gas! Rubber bullets! Nerve gas!" he cried out, displaying the spent metal canisters.

"Where are they from, America?" people asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yes, America," the man replied furiously. The crowd murmured with unsurprised disdain. Like many gas canisters in Tahrir, one of his was marked with blue letters that read "Made in USA" and bore the name of the company that produced it: Combined Tactical Systems, in Jamestown, PA.

For days, similar scenes have played out across Tahrir. Tear gas has become a persistent companion in the square, a troublesome cousin who crashes on the couch and fails to leave. Wafting in from the clashes up the street -- except in a few rare instances where it has been fired directly onto the square -- the gas lingers in the air, causing, from afar, noses to run and a sour taste in the mouth.

But the added indignation of an American connection -- on the street, protesters insist it is more like collusion -- is a potent blow.

"You know where this is from," another man, standing next to a field clinic across the street, said with a glare Wednesday, as he held up a thick metal canister shaped like a short bottle of spray paint.

"This is from America. America sent it to bomb Egypt."

Nearby, an 18-year-old in a red soccer jersey sat slumped on the sidewalk in the clinic, pawing at his eyes and moaning. He had been pulled from the fray a few minutes earlier, where the gas was much more intense. The burning sensation had briefly rendered him unable to speak. Now and then, a nurse came by and poured a homemade solution -- a mixture of antacid, topical anesthetic, and saline -- from a reused bottle of Dasani water over his face.

"It feels like my eyes are burning," the boy, who said he was from Giza, cried out after he had finally composed himself. "I can't open my eyes, I can't breathe. The gas they're using, it's different from before. I don't know where they got it from, but it's really different -- and it takes a lot longer to heal."

All day Wednesday, as the fighting around the square reached its 100th hour, people with severe cases of gas exposure -- not to mention rubber-bullet wounds -- came streaming into field clinics and dozens of first aid stations scattered near the combat zone.

At the corner of Tahrir Street and Yousef el Guindi Street, not far from the front lines, a young man wearing a white lab coat spattered with blood struggled to find a moment of peace to explain what he'd seen these past few days.

"I'm so tired," he said, with a weary smile. Suddenly, a motorbike careened up to the curb, ferrying a boy in a black sweatsuit. The fighters around Tahrir have established a makeshift ambulance system for the combat zone, with pairs of men on motorbikes who race in and out of the fight, and deliver the injured -- upright, and sandwiched between them -- to the nearest doctor.

The boy tumbled onto the rug that demarcated the first aid station.

"Hold on," the doctor said as he raced over to his new patient, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Stay awake! Stay with me," he yelled. The patient only had a rubber bullet wound on his leg, but he was young, perhaps just 15 years old, and he wailed in pain. The doctor and his two nurses sprayed him with an antibiotic foam, and sent him down toward the larger field clinics in the square.

"That was one of the easiest cases I've had yet," the doctor said when he came back. He introduced himself as Ali Sharif, and said that he was actually just a third-year medical student. He is 19 years old.

Another motorbike pulled up, this one ferrying a balding, middle-aged man in a tracksuit who had clearly succumbed to tear gas inhalation. The man was red in the face and his body sat rigidly between two people riding the motorcycle-ambulance; when it stopped, he nearly keeled over. Sharif huddled over him, urging him to cough, while the man spit up phlegm onto the sidewalk. Sharif signaled for another motorcycle, waiting nearby, to shepherd the man to a better-equipped clinic.

"That man has a heart condition, so I told him I couldn't treat him here," Sharif said when he stood back up. "Ninety percent of the cases we see of people injured are from tear gas, just normal cases. But since last night, a lot of what they've used is some other kind of gas, it's much stronger. When we start first aid the patients seem normal, but then after a while they start screaming and they lose control over their bodies, and start shaking."

Sharif is one of many around Tahrir who insist that the security forces have recently begun using a more potent form of the gas -- CR, rather than the typical CS -- or perhaps even nerve agents. (He says he has a canister of "nerve gas" that was made in China at his home.)

Unlike CS, which is commonly used by police and military forces around the world, CR has been connected with fatalities in the past, and evidence exists it may be a carcinogen. The United States military has ceased using CR out of health concerns.

So far, however, conclusive evidence about the use of other gases has proven nearly impossible to find.

"So far we have only seen [canisters] with CS on them," said Karim Medhat Ennarah, a political and security reform researcher for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, which has spent the past two days seeking evidence of other forms of gas being used.

The Guardian recently reported that many sources have complained that protesters are suffering from effects more commonly associated with powerful gases like CR, but the paper was unable to confirm the existence of canisters with those letters on them. In several hours looking around Tahrir, The Huffington Post only came across canisters marked CS, as well as a few that were unmarked. Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who has also been investigating the reports, said that the unmarked canisters are likely Egyptian-made.

Instead, it seemed more likely to observers and human rights investigators that most of the severe cases of tear gas exposure come from the tendency of riot police to fire four or five rounds of gas at a time, and from the fact that most of the skirmishes are taking place in narrow, confined alleyways.

"What we can say beyond doubt is that it's definitely excessive use of tear gas and that's probably behind a lot of the problems it's causing," Ennarah said. "It can be used for crowd dispersal, but they seem to be using it as a kind of punishment."

The U.S. State Department denied on Tuesday that the gas was purchased with American "security assistance funds," but did acknowledge that direct sales between the government and American companies have been authorized in the past.

The use of American-made tear gas has only compounded the sense among many of Tahrir's most ardent protesters that the U.S. plays a malicious role in Egyptian politics, seeking to reinforce the status quo -- in this case, the military, which they have good relations with -- rather that supporting the aspirations of demonstrators.

Over the past several days, Tahrir and its surrounding areas have become an increasingly unwelcome place to foreigners, with many foreign reporters describing xenophobic exchanges, and being subjected to random credential checks. Direct attacks on foreign journalists by the crowd have remained at a minimum.

From the start, the U.S. State Department has delivered tempered remarks on the contest between demonstrators and riot police, initially calling for restraint from "all involved," and urging "everybody" to focus on the nation's first democratic parliamentary elections, which are still scheduled to begin on Monday.

The U.S. government faces a particularly difficult challenge in Egypt because it has long backed the forces of stability -- first Hosni Mubarak, now the military regime -- as a bulwark against the rise of militant Islam. Now, the parliamentary elections which begin on Monday are expected to deliver a majority to the conservative Muslim Brotherhood, something the U.S. does not appear to mind so long as a friendly military government is there as a steward.

On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland directed her message more sharply to the Egyptian government, saying, "We condemn the excessive force used by the police."

But she also backed the speech of Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the current leader of the military regime ruling the nation, who addressed the nation Tuesday night and pledged to complete the transfer of power to civilian hands by mid 2012. (When the speech concluded, security forces once again barraged Tahrir with tear gas.)

For those like Ali Sharif, standing at his corner medical station, the struggle is far from over.

"I've been here nonstop since Saturday, except for only four hours of sleep," he said. "Sometimes I wish they would all just go home, so that I could too."

Sharif laughed. In fact, he doesn't want the struggle to end -- "I'm doing this for Egypt," he said -- but he does sometimes find himself yelling at the young fighters who keep making their way back to his station to find another use for their time.

"I tell them I'm getting tired of seeing them," Sharif said. "But they never listen to me. They all go back."

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