Cairo: The Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed
Morsi has officially won Egypt's presidential election and will be
the country's next president, AL Jazeera reported quoting the
electoral commission.
According to the Al Jazeera,
Morsi picked up 13.2 million votes out of just over 26 million,
giving him about 51 per cent of the vote. His competitor, Ahmed
Shafiq, the final prime minister under Hosni Mubarak, received
12.3 million. More than 800,000 ballots were invalidated.
Farouq Sultan, the head of the election commission, delivered a
long speech before announcing the results in which he defended the
body's "independence and integrity" amidst what he called meddling
by unnamed political factions.
The two candidates filed 456 complaints about the electoral
process, Sultan said, most of them allegations of either forgery
or Christian voters being blocked from polling stations in Upper
Egypt. The vast majority of those complaints were dismissed.
Meanwhile,
Morsi's victory caps off more than a week of behind-the-scenes
negotiations between the Brotherhood and the ruling Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).
He claimed victory just hours
after last week's runoff election, based on unofficial numbers
tallied by the Brotherhood, but the commission delayed its
official announcement until Sunday.
In the intervening days, Khairat al-Shater, the Brotherhood's
political boss, met generals from SCAF at least once. Sources say
they were negotiating exactly what powers the president will have.
Despite Morsi's victory, many of those questions about his power
remain unanswered.
Shortly before the polls closed last week, the generals issued a
decree sharply limiting the powers of the new president. It
permitted him to declare war, for example, only with the approval
of the military council.
SCAF will also keep control of legislative power, and the budget,
until a new parliament is elected. Egyptians went to the polls in
November to elect a legislature, which was dominated by the Muslim
Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, but it was dissolved
earlier this month after a high court ruling found parts of the
electoral law unconstitutional.
Saad el-Katatni, the speaker of the now-dissolved parliament, also
met with officials from SCAF, and told them that the Brotherhood
would not accept the court ruling or the election-night decree.
But it's unclear whether the Brotherhood ultimately accepted those
decisions in exchange for the presidency.
Either way, the military council - which has promised to hand over
power to a civilian government on June 30, in a "grand ceremony" -
will remain a powerful force in Egyptian politics, despite the
election of a civilian president.
|