“Elections in Egypt are turning into a religious affair.”
This is how Victor Anis, an Egyptian Copt, defined the outcome of the first round of Parliamentary elections which took place in Egypt at the end of November.
The first elections of the post-Mubarak era saw the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood, who won 40% of the vote, followed by the Salafites who gained 15-20% of consensus.
Anis’ words echoed the concern of many Countries where religious ideologies and organisations seem to have planned a meeting at polling stations, to launch some kind of a coup d’état.
All except the Coptic Church, that is, which responded to the ruckus caused by the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafites’ election campaigns with silence, as the Wall Street Journal explained. Going by its own official declarations, the Coptic Church’s absence from the political scene during the crucial time is in line with the spirit of its convictions. That is, that in a liberal democratic system, State and Church must remain separate.
According to analysts, the quiescent position taken by the ecclesiastical leadership is also linked to the moderate stance it has taken with regards to Egypt’s alternative autocratic regimes.
The Coptic Church has chosen to keep a low profile during the voting process, encouraging voters to go to the polls, whilst refraining from suggesting any candidates or parties. When it attempted to do so last month, distributing a list of preferred candidates, a wave of controversy was raised among conservative Muslims.
“The Church limited itself to encouraging people to go and vote,” Youssuf Sidhoum, director of the daily Coptic Christian newspaper “Al Watani” explained. According to Mr. Sidhoum, the Church “cannot openly put Christians on buses and send them to polling stations like the Muslim Brotherhood does.”
Christian participation in the voting process has not been officially recorded yet. But even in places where there is a greater concentration of Copts that elsewhere, the outcome of the elections does not reflect the religious denominations of the electorate.