Little contest in Egyptian election

FAYOUM, Egypt -- Millions of voters mobilized by the government flocked to polling stations across Egypt yesterday, most of them apparently casting their ballots for President Hosni Mubarak. Amid a sea of ruling party propaganda that included sound trucks, posters, and nearly ubiquitous Mubarak boosters at polling stations, the country's first-ever contested presidential election appeared anything but competitive.

The country's first move toward multiparty elections was marred by the heavy hand of ruling party officials openly instructing Egyptians how to vote. Disorganized and minimally trained election observers scrambled to polling stations throughout rural Egypt and the capital of Cairo to document widespread voting irregularities and some outright violations of the election law, according to independent and Egyptian monitoring groups.

Results were not expected until today at the earliest, but Mubarak was widely expected to win reelection with 80 percent or more of the vote. Only two of his eight challengers were considered serious candidates with any major following. The largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, was forbidden from running a candidate. Nor was the visible Kifaya prodemocracy opposition group allowed to nominate a candidate, since it is not considered a political party.

Independent monitors were officially barred from polling stations by the Presidential Election Commission, but some individual judges supervising balloting allowed monitors into their stations. The coalition of Egyptian monitoring groups overseeing the elections said it had gathered evidence of other abuses as well: Unregistered voters were allowed to cast ballots for Mubarak, and some monitors were beaten or detained.

In Fayoum, a team of monitors from a small two-year-old nonpartisan group that has joined the umbrella Independent Committee for Election Monitoring crisscrossed this rural city of nearly 2 million accompanied by a Globe reporter.

Because Fayoum is a government stronghold, outside the orbit of Cairo and heavily populated by civil servants and illiterate farmers, independent monitor Rami Abdulmagid said he expected widespread use of government resources to inflate the vote tally for Mubarak, who is seeking election to his fifth term as president.

In at least five Fayoum polling stations, armed state security officers sat inside the voting rooms, in violation of the election rules. Judges barred reporters and monitors from entering some stations.

Outside one school, an official with Mubarak's National Democratic Party was seen forging voter registration cards on a table immediately outside the polling station. Voter rolls at another school clearly had been expunged, with dozens of voters' names erased.

Most polling stations didn't have curtains around voting booths, preventing voters from casting their ballots in private.

Shaaban Abdel Hafiz, 77, a toothless farmer with cataracts that make it difficult for him to see, came to vote early, clutching a small card with Mubarak's picture and the address of his polling station.

''I was doing what everyone else does," Hafiz said, explaining why he cast his vote for Mubarak. ''Since I'm not literate, I'll shut up and live as I'm supposed to."

A state security officer who followed Hafiz out of the polling station to monitor his conversation with a reporter nodded approvingly.

Mubarak banners hung on the vast majority of polling stations.

In Fayoum, one entire voter registration list was missing until monitors complained and the polling supervisor found it.

In Cairo, several hundred people took to the streets in a march organized by Kifaya, the opposition group whose name means ''Enough" and which has been calling for an end to Mubarak's 24-year rule. They chanted ''Down with Hosni Mubarak," and were joined by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. At one point marchers exchanged taunts with Mubarak supporters, and Kifaya members reported that fistfights broke out.

But fears that the protest would turn violent -- heightened by the government's announcement on the eve of elections that it would view any voting-day demonstrations as unacceptable -- proved unfounded.

In contrast to previous protests, the government deployed very few police around yesterday's march, allowing it to flow unimpeded through downtown Cairo for three hours.

Nationwide, the Independent Committee for Election Monitoring deployed 2,200 monitors. In some cases, monitors reported that polling stations were using easily removed ink instead of indelible ink to mark the fingers of voters so that they could be identified if they tried to vote twice.

According to the group, four monitors were beaten by police in the southern city of Assiut, and another eight were arrested and released in four different cities.

But despite many examples of rules violations, many of the polling-station judges adhered to the letter of the law.

One older man in Fayoum, clutching a card with Mubarak's picture, insisted he be allowed to vote for the president even though he was not registered.

''That paper is of no value here," Judge Ashraf Nagm El-Deen curtly instructed the man, brushing away the Mubarak card. ''You aren't registered, so you can't vote. You did what is expected of you, now go home."

Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt since 1981, unexpectedly announced in February that he would allow competitors to run for president. The only two candidates considered contenders are Ayman Nour, 40, a lawyer from the Tomorrow Party, and Noaman Gomaa, 71, leader of the official opposition Wafd Party.

''The most important thing is not this election anymore," said Amir Zarkani, a top official in Nour's campaign. ''We hope to win a decent percentage, 6 to 10 percent, so we can better challenge Mubarak during his next term."

Mubarak's advisers have said their top priority was to raise voter turnout, which has been very low in recent Egyptian elections.

Still, it appeared last night that many people hadn't voted. One, a furniture shop owner in the Cairo neighborhood of Bab El-Sharia, an Ayman Nour stronghold, said he hadn't voted in decades.

''I never vote. I'm 100 percent convinced that thugs rig the election and it always comes out their way," said the shop owner, who only wanted to give his first name, Sa'id.

Election monitors, many of them recent college graduates, said they had expected widespread fraud this time around, but still found the whole process educational.

Adil El-Amir, 26, a computer engineer who was documenting voting irregularities on a form, said that members of his group were learning how to hold the poll workers accountable, and were gaining skills they will be able to use more effectively in November's parliamentary elections and in the next presidential race six years from now.

''At least we have the hope that one day this process can be real," he said.