Egypt tries to boost turnout, validating election

CAIRO -- One manager threatened employees to get them to vote and then checked for telltale ink-stained fingers as they clocked in the next day. A regional governor pledged improved water and sanitation service to towns with a high turnout. Some people were promised more food and even cash if they went to the polls.

With President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi running virtually unopposed in this week's election, Egypt's leadership has made clear it considers a high turnout crucial to ensuring the balloting has credibility.

Officials used a mixture of rewards, bullying and cajoling to boost turnout. This concerted drive has been undertaken by regional governors, community leaders, police, schools, clerics and businessmen.

The election comes amid the harshest crackdown on dissent in Egypt's modern history, with thousands of Islamists and secular activists in jail.

It has been dismissed as a sham by opposition leaders and rights groups, and a call for a boycott by the opposition was criticized by government supporters as tantamount to treason.

The get-out-the-vote campaign has enlisted all elements of society, from secular to religious.

In Qalyoubiyah province, the local branch of Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's foremost seat of learning, instructed heads of affiliated schools and seminaries to divide staff into three groups to vote on each of the three election days.

Designated leaders must escort the groups to polling stations and "monitor them until their return, when they verify that everyone has a finger stained with phosphoric ink," according to a March 20 memo obtained by the AP.

"Please follow the instructions very carefully out of concern for the nation's interest," it said.

There also have been not-so-subtle threats.

A top official of the street vendors' union in Cairo said he and other board members were told last week by authorities to get their members to vote if they wanted to be spared stepped-up raids and confiscation of goods by police and municipal officials.