Early election results a bitter pill for many
Mubarak’s ex- prime minister and Muslim Brotherhood candidate may be in run- off for presidency
CAIRO — Stunned Egyptians awoke Friday to learn that the revolution that led to the first democratic elections here in history appeared to produce a Muslim Brotherhood member and a regime holdover as the presidential finalists — sparking fear and ire in revolutionaries whose call for change could instead lead to more of the same or Islamist- based governance.
The educated Egyptians who had led the marches that forced Hosni Mubarak to resign the presidency last year conceded on Twitter and elsewhere that the voting showed that revolutionaries didn’t truly understand popular Egyptian sentiment. The anonymous Egyptian blogger “Big Pharaoh,” for example, concluded that the revolutionary “bubble” had burst.
Others threatened to boycott the runoff election slated for next month.
The results so far, compiled district by district, showed Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi in first place and Mubarak’s former prime minister, Ahmed Shafik, in second. But the results changed hour by hour as ballots trickled in, and it appeared Arab nationalist Hamdeen Sabahi was moving toward second place, making it difficult to say who will face off next month.
“Either a killer or a fundamentalist? Thank you very much, I don’t want this country any more,” said Fatma Emam, a women’s advocate and Tahrir Square fixture, referring to the prospect of a run- off between Morsi and Shafik.
Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, the one- time favoured moderate Islamist, and former Arab League secretarygeneral Amr Moussa appeared out of the running. In tweets and statements, Aboul Fotouh campaign workers said they were shocked.
At stake in the election are two vastly different visions of the Arab world’s most populated country. A Morsi win, coupled with the Brotherhood’s dominance in the parliament, offers a conservative government that is likely to distance itself from the U. S. and Israel. Such a win would also likely reshape how the Arab world sees Islamic- based governance.
Shafik would continue the practices of the past regime, which has led to a weak economy, massive unemployment and a shrinking middle class, opponents argue. But supporters hope a Shafik presidency could also mean the return to stability. The economy and security have only worsened since the revolution, they argue.
Many Egyptians do not believe Islamists or revolutionaries will accept the results if the top candidate is Shafik, leading to another round of mass protests in Tahrir Square.
Many believe Shafik is a governmentbacked candidate, and even as the votes were counted, there were already threats of returning to the streets, particularly if Shafik were to win the run- off. Shafik’s polarizing impact was evident Wednesday when he was pelted with shoes as he left the polling station where he had cast his ballot.
A Sabahi candidacy in the run- off — with half the vote still to be counted, only one percentage point separated the top three vote- getters — would represent a revolutionary victory, even as scores of voters Mcclatchy Newspapers spoke to over the election cycle said they understood little about his policies. Rather, they said they preferred him because he was neither tainted by the previous regime or part of a well- organized, domineering party, like the Brotherhood.
While the numbers were preliminary, some patterns were evident.
Morsi dominated in poorer governorates, particularly in the middle of the country. In disenfranchised communities where younger voters had a strong showing, like Port Said, Sabahi won. And in Alexandria, Egypt’s secondlargest city, Sabahi won with 25 per cent of the vote. There appeared no pattern in Shafik- dominated communities. Some were wealthy or Christian and others were poorer areas spread around the country. His base is often referred to as the “Couch Party,” those who didn’t participate in the revolution and now seek security.
In the southern governorate of Minya, where 50 per cent of residents are Christian, the vote split between Morsi and Shafik. That Shafik could have come in second suggested that he took advantage of divided votes between various revolutionary candidates. Indeed, together revolutionary candidates had more than three times as many votes as Shafik, according to returns so far. But those votes were scattered among three main candidates: Sabahi, Aboul Fotouh, and the charismatic liberal Khaled Ali.
“They made a mistake by not unifying,” said Ahmed Maher, a founder of the April 6 Youth Movement. “We said it from the beginning: We need one candidate for the revolution, not two or three.”