AL ADWA: In the Egyptian village where Islamist President Mohamed Mursi was born, police and soldiers guard voting booths during a presidential election expected to bring the man who toppled him to power.
The security measures belie a rare sense of unity along the rice paddies, corn fields and dirt roads.
Egypt has become deeply polarised since former army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi ousted Mursi last July and cracked down on his Muslim Brotherhood.
The government says the Brotherhood is a terrorist group that threatens national security.
Yet in Mursi’s home village, there seemed to be a desire for harmony, a rare commodity these days in a country plagued by protests, political violence and an Islamist insurgency.
Al Adwa has a sizable number of pro-Sisi residents, like businessman Ahmed Azab, who praised Sisi for removing the Brotherhood from power and saving Egypt from their pan-Islamic ideology.
He said Sisi supporters were sensitive to the fact that 18 pro-Brotherhood members of the village had been jailed.
Although he voted for Sisi, other supporters of the presidential frontrunner did not take part in the election. Of more than 7,000 registered voters in the village, only around 350 had cast their ballots as of mid-day yesterday.
“People refuse to put their finger in the ink bottle, so the village residents don’t notice they cast their ballots,” said Abdulrahman Essam, head of a polling station.
Posters urge people to boycott the “election of blood” which is “null and void”. Young children chant “down with military rule”.
But the images don’t seem to unnerve Sisi fans like livestock dealer Ahmed Ibrahim Selim.
“People are not voting because of Dr Mohamed Mursi, we are a kin, and we are a village, and this is their way of thinking,” said Selim, who said he sneaked around to a voting booth so that Brotherhood neighbours would not notice.
Rickshaw driver Mohamed Ibrahim said Mursi had suffered from massive injustice and his removal had destroyed Egypt. Nevertheless, he too underlined the need for harmony in Al Adwa.
“We are considered as one family, one home,” he said.
REUTERS
