英语听力精选进阶版 13640

Egypt holds first elections post-Mubarak

Summary

28 November 2011

Queues have formed at many polling stations as Egyptians vote in the first elections since President Hosni Mubarak was deposed¹ in February.

Egypt's military government insisted on holding the elections in spite of objections from protestors in Cairo, where some demonstrators died in clashes with riot police.

Reporter

Kevin Connolly

A long queue of men waiting to vote 

Long queues formed two hours before the official start of voting

Report

For Egypt's military rulers the decision to press ahead with these elections was a gamble, taken in the anxious days last week when demonstrators were dying in hails of buckshot under clouds of tear gas on the streets of Cairo.

The early indications from polling stations in and around the Egyptian capital is that that gamble has a real chance of paying off. Long, orderly queues began to form two hours before the official start of voting, an indication of the appetite for democracy here, pent-up under decades of autocratic government.

At one polling station the queue was more than eight hundred metres long.

The new parliament is likely to have a strong Islamist block led by the Muslim Brotherhood², Liberal groupings and some reconditioned relics³ of Hosni Mubarak's old party.

The system is so complicated and protracted⁴ that there'll be no results until March, but these elections can be seen as a result in themselves, an outcome of the protests that made the Arab Spring.

Kevin Connolly, BBC News, Cairo

1 deposed   

v.罢免( depose的过去式和过去分词 )；（在法庭上）宣誓作证

参考例句：

• The president was deposed in a military coup. 总统在军事政变中被废黜。
• The head of state was deposed by the army. 国家元首被军队罢免了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 brotherhood   

n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊

参考例句：

• They broke up the brotherhood.他们断绝了兄弟关系。
• They live and work together in complete equality and brotherhood.他们完全平等和兄弟般地在一起生活和工作。

3 relics   

[pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸

参考例句：

• The area is a treasure house of archaeological relics. 这个地区是古文物遗迹的宝库。
• Xi'an is an ancient city full of treasures and saintly relics. 西安是一个有很多宝藏和神圣的遗物的古老城市。

4 protracted   

adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The war was protracted for four years. 战争拖延了四年。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We won victory through protracted struggle. 经过长期的斗争，我们取得了胜利。 来自《简明英汉词典》