Today, Egyptians began voting in the first election since dictator Hosni Mubarak was ousted. To mark the occasion, Google Egypt posted a Doodle with a design similar to logos Google has posted in other countries to draw attention to elections.
The elections in Egypt involve a complicated timeline spanning into next year. The parliamentary process involves upper and lower houses and moves from regional groups and takes two days for each.
The two houses – the Shura Council – the upper house and the lower house, or People’s Assembly should have results completed by January 13.
“Two-thirds of the assembly are elected using a complex, closed proportional list system via 46 multiseat districts, while the remaining third, or 166, of the members are elected via 83 two-seat constituencies. In both cases, half of the elected members must be classified as “workers and farmers,” Bloomberg reported.
All candidates must be over 25 with a father who has Egyptian citizenship. Interestingly, voters must be 19 or older and cannot be a member of the armed forces, police, or in the care of a mental health professional.
Criminals and bankrupts are also ineligible to vote for any of the “50 parties registered by the time the election process started in September, the political spectrum in Egypt ranges from small parties formed to support a single candidate to larger groupings such as the Democratic Alliance,” Bloomberg added.
Google has previously posted election doodles for New Zealand, Tunisia, and Argentina: