Egyptians began voting today in the first election since toppling former President, Hosni Mubarak in February. These elections are the first of a programme of elections that will last until March 2012, and although only a tiny proportion of the population has internet access, Google is continuing to do its bit for democracy and hoping to inspire Egyptians to vote.

The past two weeks have seen a troubling renewal of the violence that forced Mubarak from office. 41 protesters have been killed with more than 2 000 wounded as tensions increased in recent days.

Field Marshall, Hussein Tantawi, who heads the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, said in a statement yesterday:

Either we succeed – politically, economically and socially – or the consequences will be extremely grave and we will not allow that.

Protesters feel that Tantawi and his followers are trying to retain power unjustifiably, and do not want them in power. Samira Hosni said:

We reject any resolution taken by the military council – except for the handover of power to an authority that we approve. Then we will be making the decisions in Egyptian politics.

Shadi Hamid, research director at the Doha Brookings Centre, said:

It will also tell us how much Egyptians are invested in this political process. If turnout is low, it will mean there is widespread disaffection among Egyptians and they don’t believe that real change is possible through the electoral process.

With respect to the younger generation of Egyptians that took part in orchestrating the toppling of Mubarak, Google has pledged renewed support for them.

Doodle support…

Each letter of the six-letter doodle spells out an action of the voting process, and it’s hoped it might help inspire those with internet access to spread the information to others in much the same way they did during the initial uprisings – word of mouth was key.

50 million Egyptians are eligible to vote and they will choose candidates from 50 registered political parties.

Nasry Esmat, an Egyptian journalist living in New York:

I find [the Google doodle] very significant to the new generation in Egypt that uses technology. We all know what Google is and what it means for them to give us some international attention. The doodle adds more to our pride.

The majority of Egyptians still can’t use the Internet or computers, but these tools are very effective because they help those who have basic knowledge to spread the information.

And, honestly, those who have basic knowledge are the ones who can make change in Egypt.

Google had already developed an election API to facilitate the voting process in September. Its aim was to provide easy access to information like polling locations and candidate profiles.

[Sources: BBC, Mashable, MailandGuardian]