Egypt’s Electoral Collage

Voters Are Excited, But Everything’s Up In the Air

CAIRO – The cityscape looks a bit different these days. Buildings are sporting a darker layer of dust, and graffiti–provocative, elaborate, and in defiance of the regime–is everywhere. Walk beyond Tahrir Square and you’ll see a snake with Mubarak’s wife as its head, hieroglyphic renditions of the uprising, and psychedelic memorials to the revolution’s martyrs. Graffiti, nearly absent prior to 2011, is now so ubiquitous it’s almost passé.

Then there are the campaign ads. Egyptians are voting in a competitive presidential election this week. The frontrunners’ faces are plastered everywhere–peering out …