Vote or else, Egyptian media warns public - News - Aswat Masriya - 1 views
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Egyptian media castigated the public for a low turnout in a presidential election which former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is expected to win, with one commentator saying those who failed to vote should be shot.
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The popular uprising which toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011 raised hopes that the Egyptian press would no longer blindly back the country's leaders and would instead take a critical look at their performance. Egyptian media, both state and private, have hailed Sisi as a saviour since he ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi after mass protests and cracked down on his Muslim Brotherhood.
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"We are looking for a popular vote that will make it clear to the world that this is the will of the people," said Lamees al-Hadidi, a popular talk show host on a private news channel. Two private Egyptian television channels flashed news urgents on Tuesday quoting officials at the supreme election committee saying that those who do not vote could be fined and referred to the public prosecutor.
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Several Egyptian journalists interviewed by Reuters said it was their national duty to defend the state because the Brotherhood posed a threat to its existence. Mostafa Bakry - an Egyptian commentator who once said Americans in Egypt should be killed in the streets if the United States ever harmed Sisi - joined the frenzied media call for a high turnout to give Sisi a strong mandate. "Anyone who doesn't go down to vote, you are giving the kiss of life to those terrorists," Bakry shouted as he pointed his finger at the screen on privately owned al-Nahar television. "Go out (to vote), and those who don't go are traitors, traitors, traitors, who are selling this country."