"Vote for those leading you to heaven! Don't vote for liberals and seculars! Give your votes to those who would protect Islam! Vote for the candidates of the church! Don't let Islam down in runoffs between respectable scholar Muhammad Yusrī and the church candidate Mustafá al-Najjār!"
These were the slogans most commonly read here or there. Complaints have been repeatedly lodged during the first round of the People's Assembly elections against sectarian incitation and religious polarization in voting that almost strangled the fledgling democratic experiment in Egypt.
Ahmad Yahyá 'Abd al-Hamīd, a professor of political sociology, said that young men and women accused him of observe God in his actions when he said that he is not going to vote for political Islam parties.
"I was treated as if I had renounced Islam," he said.
He noted that using religion to impress votes like the case with Mustafá al-Najjār, a Muslim revolutionary young man who was said to be the church's candidate.
Read the original text in Arabic
