Coptic Christians turn out in large numbers to vote

Coptic Christians turned out in large numbers in the Egyptian presidential runoff that will continue for two days. Speaking to the Anadolu Agency (AA) in Cairo, many Christian women said that they would vote for Ahmed Shafiq for a "civil state". A Christian philosopher, Jamal Es'ad told the AA that Coptic Christians turned out in large numbers in the Egyptian presidential runoff on their own will. The Coptic Church had no influence on Christian voters, Es'ad stressed. We are faced with two candidates one of which is an Islamist and the other represents a civil state. Our votes will naturally go to the candidate supporting the civil state. Large numbers of Christian women are voting in the runoff as they think that they would suffer under an Islamic state, Es'ad underlined. Egyptians will be able to cast their votes between 08.00 and 19.00 hours on Saturday and Sunday. Tight security measures were taken in all corners of Egypt for the presidential runoff. There are around 51 million voters in Egypt. Meanwhile, Egyptian security forces shut down the Rafah Border Gate between Egypt and Gaza to prevent illegal trade during the presidential runoff. Refraining to guess Egyptian political experts are refraining from making guesses in the presidential runoff. A political analyst, Samih Rasheed said that it was almost impossible to guess who would win after the race between the two candidates heated up after the Egyptian Constitutional Court dissolved the Egyptian Parliament. The dissolution of the parliament weakened the thought that Muslim Brotherhood was dominating politics, Rasheed underlined. Deputy Chairman of the Arab Political Researches Center, Mukhtar al-Gabashi argued that the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate Mohammad Mursi was closer to winning the runoff. The people may see the runoff as a tool to punish the prime minister of the former administration (Ahmed Shafiq), al-Gabashi stressed. Whoever wins, there will not be much difference among the votes, al-Gabashi also said.