Residents in the working class neighborhoods of Meet Oqba and Ard al-Lewa, located in central Giza, witnessed the distribution of staple commodities as part of an effort to mobilize voters during the last two days of Egypt's 2018 presidential election.

In Ard al-Lewa on Tuesday, a young man responsible for distributing the bags of goods said, "all of this in exchange for an inked finger." His statement came in response to a question asked by a local resident on how to obtain one of the bags. The young man then elaborated, saying that the foodstuffs will only be given to those whose fingers were dipped in the phosphorus ink, which is used in voting stations as a safeguard against double voting and is therefore an easy indicator of those who have already cast their ballots. The young man was also registering the names and information of those who took one of the bags, which include cooking oil, sugar, rice, ghee and tea.

The man then pointed onlookers to microbuses located nearby and designated to transporting voters to polling stations.

The following day, similar commodities were distributed in Meet Oqba using a more complex system, which required voters to register before casting their vote.

When a woman requested a bag of foodstuffs from the distributor in Meet Oqba, the man refused and told her, “you did not come to register and take a piece of paper [before heading to the polls]. You went by yourself, so you get nothing."

Luckier individuals who managed to acquire a bag of the foodstuffs told Mada Masr that they did not know exactly where these bags came from. All they knew, they said, was that a local businessman and former parliamentary candidate in the Dokki and Agouza electoral district supplied the bags.

The distributors observed seemed to be concerned only with mobilizing voters, with little interest in who the voters actually chose.