Egyptians queued patiently to vote yesterday, eager to pick their leader for the first time in a national history dating to the pharaohs, with Islamists and secular-minded rivals who served under deposed President Hosni Mubarak heading the field.
Egyptians queued patiently to vote yesterday, eager to pick their leader for the first time in a national history dating to the pharaohs, with Islamists and secular-minded rivals who served under deposed President Hosni Mubarak heading the field.
jubilant: Egyptian men queue to vote in the first round of historic presidential elections in Cairo. Left, a woman shows her ink-marked finger after casting her vote and an elderly woman is assisted outside a polling station in the capital. Main picture: EPA
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Edmund Blair CAIRO
With no reliable opinion polls, no-one can accurately predict who will win the presidency, but Egyptians revelled in the uncertainty after the routinely rigged votes of Mubarak's 30 years in power.
"We must prove that the times when we stayed at home and someone would choose for us are over," said Islam Mohamed, a 27-year-old swimming coach, waiting at a Cairo polling station. There were no early reports of vote-related violence.
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