Even though no official results have yet been announced—the Supreme Elections Committee (SEC) declared it needs till at least today, Sunday, to look into the contests
Even though no official results have yet been announced—the Supreme Elections Committee (SEC) declared it needs till at least today, Sunday, to look into the contests—the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) candidate Mohamed Mursi has declared he won the race to the presidency with over 52 per cent of the vote. His supporters have been celebrating in the squares of Egyptian towns since last Monday morning—the elections were over on the evening of the previous day, Sunday.
The other contender Ahmed Shafik is, for his part, also claiming victory. Shafik, a liberal secular candidate who is nonetheless seen by many as having belonged to the Mubarak establishment, insists the FJP announced the results before the vote count was over. His campaign has described the behaviour by Mursi and his supporters as an illegitimate attempt to terrorise the public and hijack the elections results.
Who’s the next president?
The SEC declared that any results announced by any other body are not valid, and that it is still looking into claims and contests, and would announce the final results on Sunday.
Even if Mursi wins, however, it will be a victory of sorts. On the eve of the elections, the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) issued a decree which gave the military police the right to arrest civilians under a number of charges. And again, as the elections came to a finish, the SCAF issued a constitutional declaration which gave it sweeping legislative and executive powers. The move came under the pretext that conflict between the various political forces has, since the 25 January 2011 Revolution, led to failure to take any serious step towards writing a new constitution. The predictable result was a stalemate, and Egypt was getting a president with no constitutionally defined authorities. The SCAF move has been described by many analysts as a “soft coup”.
In defiance
Last week the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) issued a ruling which dissolved the People’s Assembly (PA), the lower house of Egypt’s parliament, on grounds that the elections which brought it in were unconstitutional. Members of the dissolved PA which included a sweeping Islamist majority, have rejected the ruling; two MPs attempted last Monday, and again on Tuesday, to go into the PA building, but were prevented from doing so by the guards.
In defiance to the SCAF constitutional declaration, the [Islamist-majority] constituent assembly selected only last week by the dissolved PA to write the constitution has insisted on holding two meetings amid a large number of walkouts by its members, and general confusion as to whether it was in office or was dissolved as a consequence of the dissolution of the PA.
The MB, Salafis, and several political movements which describe themselves as “revolutionary”, among them the 6 April movement, conducted a “million-person demonstration” against the SCAF constitutional declaration in Tahrir Square last Tuesday, and promised to keep up the demonstrations till the PA is back. Similar demonstrations were also held in other Egyptian towns. The sweltering summer heat, however, drives the protestors to stay indoors till sunset then demonstrate in the evening.
Dead or alive?
On Tuesday evening news circulated that the former president Hosni Mubarak passed away. Mubarak died at the military hospital in Maadi, Cairo, to which he had been moved from Tura prison, south of Cairo, on suffering from a stroke. The former president had been serving a life sentence in Tura for his part in killing the demonstrators in Tahrir Square in January 2011.
Hours later, however, Mubarak’s lawyer Farid al-Deeb denied the former president had died. The media overflowed with conflicting reports: The Associated Press insisted Mubarak had died; several news sites said he was “clinically dead”; while others said his health was stable.
WATANI International
22 June 2012