CAIRO, 11 September 2005 — Protesting against President Hosni Mubarak’s re-election in a low turnout election, some 2,000 Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo yesterday.
They marched through the city center, chanting anti-Mubarak slogans and waving banners. “Mubarak is ruling Egypt with the approval of 19 percent of the electorate,” read one banner.
Mubarak won 88.5 percent of the vote in the Sept. 7 presidential election but only 23 percent of Egypt’s 32 million registered voters turned out.
The demonstration, which came a day after the official results were announced, was led by groups such as the Marxist Tagammu and the Kefaya (Enough) movement which boycotted the country’s first open vote.
The election runner-up, Ghad (Tomorrow) party leader Ayman Nour, also made an appearance at the protest as he seeks to consolidate his image as leader of the opposition to the Mubarak camp.
US-Egyptian sociologist and rights activist Saadeddin Ibrahim, whose organization took part in monitoring the vote, condemned “fraud and falsification” during the polling process.
“It is therefore quite justified to scream in protest. I hope this will be the beginning of a new movement similar to those in Georgia and Lebanon that will hopefully bring down the system and resume democratization,” Ibrahim told AFP.
— With input from agencies
