Al Jazeera‘s Sherine Tadros writes: As I was crashing to make the deadline for my elections piece on the first day of voting, I trawled through the raw pictures the cameraman had collected from various polling stations looking for that classic woman-holding-up-purple-finger-and-smiling shot.

I didn’t find it. There were lots of purple fingers (the ink stain you get showing you’ve voted) but nobody held theirs up to the cameraman with pride, the hallmark shot of previous election days.

There is a distinct lack of energy or enthusiasm surrounding this vote. It’s safe to predict that most of those eligible to vote will not cast their ballots this time around – a mixture of apathy, confusion and active boycott.

There are of course those who tell me they are voting Mohamed Morsi or Ahmed Shafik out of conviction but ask a few more questions and you’ll find the conviction is more about the other not winning than belief in the candidate they are voting for.

For many others, the deep seated depression surrounding the vote comes from the realization that whoever wins, it’s the military rulers or SCAF that will end up running the country.

February 12th was not the start of a transition to democracy, it was a military takeover.