In a long queue in the Cairo district of Shubrā, 75-year-old Ahmad al-Sayīd said the platforms of candidates are all the same, adding voting must be based on the candidate’s “Islamic background because God will ask us who did we vote for”.

In another location in Subrā, 67-year-old Christian man Murād Salīb, said he will vote for Shafīq even though he thinks Copts have had their worst times under the former regime but said, “The fulūl’s hell is much milder than the Islamists’ paradise”. [Muhammad Sālim, al-Shurūq al-Jadīd, May 25, p. 6] Read text in Arabic