Mubarak casts vote in Shura elections
Egypt, Politics, 6/7/2001

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak called on Egyptians to head to the polling stations to cast their votes in the Shura Council mid-term elections.

The president was speaking to the press after he and his spouse Mrs Suzanne Mubarak on Thursday cast their votes at a polling station in the Heliopolis suburb.

Asked if the Shura Council elections under the full judicial supervision had sidestepped some of the shortcomings that surfaced at the People's Assembly elections, the president said that such shortcomings existed in all parts of the world.

Elections have their pros and cons and the judicial system was introduced to guarantee fairness of the elections, he added.

On whether he thought that the Palestinian-Israeli ceasefire would hold, especially that the Israeli side did not adopt any positive measures to lift the siege on the Palestinians, he said it was premature to speak about this The ceasefire has started a very short while ago and I hope the two sides reach security measures that will be gradually and eventually followed by an end to the siege, he added.

The Palestinian people cannot remain under a siege forever, he said.

Asked if the security talks that started earlier in the day provided a step forward on the Palestinian-Israeli peace track or whether the road was still long, he said: "We do not want the road to be long at this time." "No one knows what could happen under such conditions, and therefore I hope the two sides reach an agreement and afterwards the siege is lifted and the negotiations are started," he added.

The president and Mrs Mubarak arrived at the polling station at 10.00 a.m., where they were greeted by Shura Council Speaker Moustafa Kamal Helmi, Minister of Interior Habib el Adly and Cairo Governor Abdel Rehim Shehata.

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