Mohamed Morsi claims victory for Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt election

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/18/mohamed-morsi-muslim-brotherhood-egypt

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Preliminary results have placed the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi on the verge of the Egyptian presidency, but a standoff between the expected election winners and the country's military authority appears inevitable.

The Muslim Brotherhood held a press conference at 4am Cairo time, saying its candidate had beaten his rival, Ahmed Shafiq, Hosni Mubarak's last appointed premier, by almost 1 million votes.

With 99% of the votes tabulated, the Brotherhood claimed Morsi had garnered 13.2m votes – 51.8% – against 12.3m for Shafiq. Initial results contain a margin of error of about two percentage points, meaning the result may be premature. However, the confidence with which the group claimed its victory was palpable.

The electoral commission is due to announce the official results on Thursday, and the Shafiq campaign has strenuously contested the Brotherhood's figures. Until the official announcement, candidates can appeal to strike a number of votes over reported violations. After the first round, though, the commission dismissed all candidates' appeals.

Morsi made an appearance at a press conference shortly after the Brotherhood claimed victory, and gave a speech promising to be president of all Egyptians, not just those who voted for him. "I will be serving all Egyptians, and standing at an equal distance from all of them."

Chants of "God is great" and "down with military rule" rang out at the press conference and delirious Brotherhood supporters spilled out into the streets to celebrate. Their headquarters is across the road from the ministry of the interior, which once housed many of them behind its high walls.

If the results are confirmed, Egypt faces a standoff between the Brotherhood and the ruling military junta, which has been making an 11th-hour bid to seize back constitutional powers.

Only hours before the numbers started rolling in, the supreme council of the armed forces (Scaf) issued constitutional amendments that gave it sweeping powers and limited a future president's executive authority. Scaf enjoys legislative authority, the power to draft the constitution, extraordinary powers of arrest and almost complete control over its own affairs and the final say on going to war.

This is being described as the final act to complete a military coup, and prompted the prominent human rights lawyer Gamal Eid to say: "Whoever accepts the military coup and the rule of the tanks is complicit."

Another spanner in the Brotherhood's works was the recent decision by the supreme constitutional court to dissolve parliament, in which it was the majority bloc through its political arm, the Freedom and Justice party.

An hour later, celebrations began in Tahrir Square, the meeting point for protesters during the 18-day revolution, as the Brotherhood framed the apparent victory as a strike for the revolution, much to the chagrin of activists who believe the Brotherhood deserted the revolution months ago.

Investors seem to have deserted Egypt in the wake of news of Morsi's lead. The market's benchmark index dropped 1.9% during early hours of trading on Monday.