World Notes EGYPT

The streets were hung with political posters and multicolored banners, and noisy crowds gathered for campaign speeches. But when 12.7 million Egyptians went to the polls last week, only one candidate was on the ballot, President Hosni Mubarak, and he was approved for a new six-year term with 97% of the vote.

Mubarak was assured of a second term in July, when he was nominated without opposition by the People's Assembly, Egypt's legislature. Although last week's vote lacked suspense, it was nonetheless a tribute to the staying power of the taciturn, plainspoken Mubarak, who was Vice President when President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981. Mubarak has expanded democratic freedoms at a time of severe economic problems and rising Islamic fundamentalism. When he was chosen for his first term in the tense period immediately after Sadat's death, "the big turnout was not for Mubarak, it was for Egypt," said Sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim. "This time the turnout was for him."