Dina Ezzat senses the pulse of the hoi polloi Sweet potatoes Ali is a sweet potato vendor who walks down the streets of the city of Ismailia every day from 1pm to 1am. He then goes home for a simple dinner and wakes up at around seven "to wash and bake the sweet potatoes" so he can start another round. "Elections!" he said with a smile as he handed two baked sweet potatoes to a young girl who gave him LE1. "Elections are not for people like us. We have a living to make and we don't have time for this kind of thing." Ali is in his late 50s and a father of five children. "I need to pay my rent and feed the kids. If I get sick I go to the mosque and ask for charity so I can go to the doctor. I don't care at all about elections." Ali was not "at all approached" by any of the candidates in his Ismailia electoral district, neither from the Muslim Brotherhood who lost, nor from the ruling NDP which won. "Why would they care about me?" he stated. "They would rather go to people with big families who can give them many votes." Ali said that if anybody had given him LE50 for his vote he would have offered it without hesitation. "LE50. Of course... Why not... Of course... And yes to anyone." For the sake of Heliopolis Murad and Madeline are a retired couple in their 70s. Together they walked slowly down Al-Iskandar Al-Akbar Street towards Heliopolis High School for Girls, the venue of the nearest polling station for them. Murad was an engineer and so was Madeline. They are second generation Heliopolis residents. "We were both born here and we met here and we got married and our two children and their families live here. All of us are in Heliopolis," said Murad as Madeline nodded. Murad and Madeline both look very frail but they still made the effort to vote. "We always do," said Madeline. For Murad and Madeline, there is a good reason why they vote: to make sure they have a choice in the election of their MP. "It is important who your MP is." What counts most for Murad and Madeline is that the next MP would give more attention to "matters of cleanliness. It is becoming unbearable. I sometimes feel I am no longer living in Heliopolis. This is no longer the neighbourhood I lived in all my life. This is a neighbourhood with so much garbage all over the street," said Madeline. Murad added that he also wants attention to be dedicated to the architectural heritage of this neighbourhood. "It is such a pity. So many beautiful buildings have been knocked down to allow for ugly buildings. We have to keep the architectural heritage of Heliopolis. Wherever I travel I find a great deal of attention to architectural heritage, so why not here as well?" Irrelevant issue Asmaa, Shaimaa and Rabab are three Suez girls in their early 20s. On Sunday afternoon as hundreds of demonstrators protested in front of the Suez Security Department against alleged rigging of the elections the three young women were trying to find an alternative road away from the angry crowds of sympathisers of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Wafd and NDP/ independent candidates. "Of course we have nothing to do with elections; it is none of our business. We just want to go home and not be caught in the middle of the crowds," said Shaimaa. None of the girls cast her ballot. Nor did they want to. They were not even tempted by the ads put on state-run TV urging citizens, including women, to vote. "Yes... Yes, I watched that ad on TV but I'm not interested," said Rabab. The three heavily veiled girls could not be more disinterested even if they tried. For them, the parliamentary elections were a matter that preoccupied some but not all citizens. If it is an exercise that allows some people to make money or gain influence, for them there is no chance of getting either. Asmaa said that she "heard of families" who went to vote collectively because they were offered incentives from some candidates. "Maybe my father goes to vote but I don't know. I don't have a voting card; never got one. It's not important," stated Asmaa before she asked her companions to get going before the demonstrations got worse. "It's almost sunset. Got to go before things get worse." Prayers and politics The ultra-conservative veil of Sanaa, a 62-year-old retired civil servant from Ismailia, would have suggested that she is a Muslim Brotherhood sympathiser. Not so. "Muslim Brotherhood? Why? Do I need someone to teach me how to pray or how to fast? I know all about my religion and I don't need to be preached and if I have a question I'll call Al-Azhar hotline and ask," she said. As far as Sanaa is concerned the Muslim Brotherhood have some "good ideas but they cannot implement them simply because they are not in the government. They want to rule but they are not there and it is not wise to vote for them because it is a vote wasted," she argued. It is for the NDP that Sanaa voted. "To tell you the truth this is the first time for me to take part in a parliamentary election. I used to think it was pointless but this time I thought that maybe if we vote for someone who could do something for this city, things could get better." The outgoing MP in Ismailia city was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. "But he did nothing for the city. He cannot call the municipal office and ask them to clean the streets because they would not answer him and he cannot create job opportunities because he cannot encourage investors to build factories," she added. These are not the things that Sanaa wants and this is not the type of things that she thought anyone from the opposition, Muslim Brotherhood or otherwise, could provide. "For these things you need the government and you need the [ruling party]." So was Sanaa voting the Muslim Brotherhood MP out when she decided to cast her ballot? "No, he is an honest man and he wants to fight corruption but I was just making sure that [the NDP candidate] would get in because then he would be interested in providing some services for this city so that he would be re-elected to the next parliament," she reasoned. Sanaa has been supporting her three children since her husband passed away five years go. In two years, her elder son will graduate and she hopes he will find a job to help him generate some income so that he contributes to the family's monthly budget that she is finding increasingly difficult to live on. "He is very pessimistic. He says he would become depressed if after he graduates he fails to find a job because that would mean he would still count on me financially." Should this be the case, Sanaa is planning a visit to the NDP MP she voted for to solicit help. "Is he not our elected MP?"
