Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [62]
Luke arrives next, followed by Qasim, who waves his dark purple thumb—proof that he has voted. I beg him to take me to the polling sites. I don’t want to sit in the office missing all of the action. He insists on calling Faris to get permission to take me out, and we finally head to the SCER. It’s housed in a massive building filled with scores of hustling and bustling Yemeni officials and local and international reporters dashing about looking important and typing up stories in a computer room. On the first floor, reporters run in and out of the smoky restaurant, holding glasses of shaay haleeb—tea with milk.
We head to the Ministry of Information to get my press ID. This is no simple task. Qasim asks me to lie and say that I am a reporter for The Week in the United States, because an international press pass apparently grants greater freedom. I don’t want to lie. I’m going to be living here for a year, and I will be found out sooner or later. But it’s illegal for a foreigner to be running a Yemeni paper, Qasim reminds me. We compromise and put both the Observer and The Week on my tag, which is pink for “international reporter.”
We hear rumors of election-related violence and killings in Ta’iz and other governorates, but most remain unconfirmed. It’s funny how fast the news of these alleged incidents spreads. I even hear from several people that a man was arrested with explosives in Tahrir Square, just down the street from me. Misinformation seems to move much faster than fact.
My pink tag dangling from my neck, I climb into Qasim’s car and we head to a nearby polling place. In the courtyard of the al-Quds School for Girls on Baghdad Street, a long black column of women stretches all the way down the hall leading to their voting rooms. Though it’s now noon, many of them have been standing there since the polls opened.
Across the courtyard, men do not have to wait in line. They dart in and out, completing their votes in five minutes or less.
“The women take longer to vote because they are not educated,” local election supervisor Ameen Amer explains. “Many are illiterate.”
To assist the illiterate, the presidential ballot has color photos of each candidate, as well as his party’s emblem, next to his name. A rearing horse symbolizes Saleh, while a rising sun is the sign of the Islah Party.
“Most of the women just registered this year and haven’t done this before,” says another election supervisor. “It’s a matter of education, and now, democracy is proceeding, day by day, and getting better and better.”
Others we speak to in the sunny courtyard suggest that men vote later in the day, after work, while most women vote in the morning. It’s a frustrating wait in the hot sun for the women, who grow restless and shout out their complaints. “We have a crisis!” one woman cries. “Nobody is moving!” Yet they admirably do not give up, and most wait patiently for their turn in the voting booth.
As voters file into each room, they are given one presidential ballot, two ballots for governorate councils, and two for district councils. They then secrete themselves behind the gray curtains of a small booth, where they mark their chosen candidates. As each emerges, she stuffs her papers into the plastic ballot boxes, before dipping her thumb into the well of purple ink that brands her as a voter.
A row of seated representatives from each party observes the voting, often erupting into arguments but not becoming violent.
“Nobody is cheating,” says observer Hanan al-Jahrani, who is representing the GPC (the ruling party to which President Saleh belongs). “We have had no problems.”
For the most part, the process is going smoothly, concurs Amer. But at least fifteen people have come to the polls wearing T-shirts or hats emblazoned with their favored candidates, which is against election law.
A businessman tells us that the voting process has improved.