Women stand in line inside a polling station during Egypt's elections. Photograph: Etienne De Malglaive/Getty
The Muslim Brotherhood has been publishing on its Twitter feed what it claims are preliminary results of votes cast by Egyptians overseas, where polls have closed. It claims the details have come from Egyptian embassies overseas but the Egyptian government has denied releasing such information, according to Ahram Online , and says the results will be published alongside those from within Egypt so as not to prejudice the voting.
The Brotherhood says its Freedom and Justice party, has won the majority of votes in Yemen and Oman but that the Free Egyptians party, a liberal party that is part of the Egyptian bloc, has won the most votes in the Republic of Ireland.Meanwhile, the Associated Press areports long lines forming on Tuesday at polling centres around the capital Cairo and other cities , despite those Twitter reports suggesting lower turnout today.
Omar Robert Hamilton update. After explaining why he has changed his mind about boycotting the poll (see the previous post), Omar Robert Hamilton has now voted.
He is not the only one reporting lower turnout today.No queues at all at at Zamalek station. Was done in 5 minutes.
Journalist and activist Sarah Carr tweets:
Been walking around Abdeen and now in Sayeda Zeinab 0 queues v. Few voters coming in & out of polling stations.NBC Ayman Mohayeldin tweets:
Any busy polling stations today with long queues? Have been to a few but very low numbers. #egyelections
Some Egyptian activists are changing their tune on participation in the election, Jack Shenker reports.
Many demonstrators in Tahrir Square vowed to boycott these elections: some out of the belief that they simply couldn't be held amid the current security crisis, but most because they felt that any parliament that emerges from them will have little real power in the face of an ongoing military dictatorship, that the real struggle for the revolution lies elsewhere, and to participate would effectively help legitimise Scaf's rule.
Interestingly some - but by no means all - are now changing their minds. Among them is film-maker and activist Omar Robert Hamilton, who has written up an interesting blog post explaining his decision.
"No one is expecting voting to achieve the aims of the revolution," claims Hamilton. "I don't think anyone even wants to vote. The elections are a sham. But they are one of the battles that are being forced on us so I think we should engage."
He goes on to list three main reasons for casting a ballot. Firstly that the elections have been designed as a weapon against the revolution; the Muslim Brotherhood and Scaf are trying to stitch up parliament between them, he argues, and if the poll offers even a 0.0001% chance of disrupting that plan then it's worth participating. Secondly that voting doesn't necessarily mean endorsing Scaf or their 'transition' timetable. And finally that the elections and the struggle in Tahrir are not mutually exclusive, and that the boycott call could serve to alienate Egyptians beyond the square.
That last point is a really interesting one, and something that was borne out for me when I visited Duweiqa, a very poor district to the east of Cairo, yesterday afternoon. It wasn't that the voters there were anti-Tahrir or even pro-Scaf; in fact many of them shared the same critique of military rule that is often articulated at anti-junta protests. But they did feel that Tahrir was something distant and detached from their own struggle for dignity and a basic standard of living in one of the most impoverished areas of the country, and that those calling for a boycott didn't understand how much the chance to vote and thus have some say over their lives - however flawed the process was - meant to them. From the perspective of the revolutionaries, anything that can help build bridges between Tahrir and neighbourhoods like Duweiqa can only be a good thing.
As Hamilton argues: "The revolution will rise or fall on how widespread it is. Tahrir was most effective when it was the physical representation of a national will; when the country was shut down because of it and the wave of union actions behind it. It can be that again, but we have to make sure it keeps feeling like everyone's home."
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