With no reliable opinion polls, no one knows who will win the presidency, but Egyptians enjoyed 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 and independent election monitors said they saw no major abuses.
The election is a momentous sequel to Mubarak's overthrow on February 11, 2011. The military council in charge of a messy and often bloody political transition since then has overseen a constitutional referendum, parliamentary polls and now a vote for a president to whom it has promised to hand power by July 1.The revolutionaries of Tahrir Square may be reluctant to trust Egypt's future to Islamists or Mubarak-era politicians, but those candidates may appeal to many of the 50 million eligible voters who yearn for Islamic-tinged reform or who want a firm and experienced hand to restore stability and security.Whoever wins faces a huge task to relieve a dire economic outlook and will also have to deal with a military establishment keen to preserve its privileges and political influence.The relative powers of the president, government, parliament, judiciary and military have yet to be defined as a tussle over who should write a new constitution rumbles on.Many Egyptians were still undecided even as they went to the polls on the first of two days of voting.