Friday, 25 May 2012
The Brotherhood said their candidate Mohamed Mursi was
leading by 30.8 percent after counting votes from more than half of the
voting centers. (Reuters)
The Muslim Brotherhood announced on Friday its candidate was
leading the early count in Egypt’s key presidential election that pitted
stability against the ideals of the uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak’s
rule.
“The results that have been announced indicate that our candidate Dr. Mohamed Morsi has an early lead based on the tally from polling stations whose data have been received so far,” according latest statement by the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood said Mursi was leading by 30.8 percent after counting votes from more than half of the voting centers.
“The results that have been announced indicate that our candidate Dr. Mohamed Morsi has an early lead based on the tally from polling stations whose data have been received so far,” according latest statement by the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood said Mursi was leading by 30.8 percent after counting votes from more than half of the voting centers.
“Dr. Muhammed Mursi continues to
lead in the presidential race after counting votes from 6,661 polling
centers, of a total 131,100 centers,” the statement added.
The Brotherhood said their candidate, Mursi, was followed by Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime minister, by 22.3 percent, and Nasserist politician Hamdeen Sabbahi in the third place.
Moderate Islamist candidate Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh and former Arab League chief Amr Moussa, who repeatedly appeared as front runners in the opinion polls prior to the elections, came in the fourth and fifth place, consecutively winning 17 and 11 percent, according to Muslim Brotherhood statement.
Just hours after polling stations closed at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) Thursday, Essam al-Erian, vice chairman of the Islamist group’s Freedom and Justice Party, told reporters, “I am confident that as first indications show, our candidate is leading.”
The powerful Brotherhood is sing their formidable nationwide network to tally votes.
The experience of waiting for an electoral result that has not been predetermined is a novel one for citizens of the Arab world’s most populous nation, where years of presidential votes always produced the same winner.
This time around, 50 million eligible voters were given the chance to choose between 12 candidates in a race that has been largely free of the violence and fraud that often marred elections before the January-February 2011 revolt.
Electoral commission officials said turnout was around 50 percent over the two days of voting on Wednesday and Thursday, with some voters queuing for hours to cast their ballot.
In schools and other institutions around the country, representatives from Egypt’s electoral commission carefully sorted the ballots, each printed with the name, photograph and electoral symbol of the candidates, into neat piles.
Official tallies are not scheduled to be announced until May 27.
The election seals a tumultuous military-led transition from autocratic rule marked by political upheaval and bloodshed, but which also witnessed democratic parliamentary elections that saw Islamist groups score a crushing victory.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, in power since Mubarak’s ouster, has vowed to restore civilian rule by the end of June, after a president is elected, but many fear its withdrawal from politics will be just an illusion.
The army, with its vast and opaque economic power, wants to keep its budget a secret by remaining exempt from parliamentary scrutiny, maintain control of military-related legislation and secure immunity from prosecution.
Mubarak, 84 and ailing, is being held in a military hospital on the outskirts of Cairo where he awaits the verdict of his murder trial on June 2.
The former strongman, ousted in a popular uprising last year, is accused of involvement in the killing of some 850 protesters during the uprising and of corruption.
The Brotherhood said their candidate, Mursi, was followed by Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime minister, by 22.3 percent, and Nasserist politician Hamdeen Sabbahi in the third place.
Moderate Islamist candidate Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh and former Arab League chief Amr Moussa, who repeatedly appeared as front runners in the opinion polls prior to the elections, came in the fourth and fifth place, consecutively winning 17 and 11 percent, according to Muslim Brotherhood statement.
Just hours after polling stations closed at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) Thursday, Essam al-Erian, vice chairman of the Islamist group’s Freedom and Justice Party, told reporters, “I am confident that as first indications show, our candidate is leading.”
The powerful Brotherhood is sing their formidable nationwide network to tally votes.
The experience of waiting for an electoral result that has not been predetermined is a novel one for citizens of the Arab world’s most populous nation, where years of presidential votes always produced the same winner.
This time around, 50 million eligible voters were given the chance to choose between 12 candidates in a race that has been largely free of the violence and fraud that often marred elections before the January-February 2011 revolt.
Electoral commission officials said turnout was around 50 percent over the two days of voting on Wednesday and Thursday, with some voters queuing for hours to cast their ballot.
In schools and other institutions around the country, representatives from Egypt’s electoral commission carefully sorted the ballots, each printed with the name, photograph and electoral symbol of the candidates, into neat piles.
Official tallies are not scheduled to be announced until May 27.
The election seals a tumultuous military-led transition from autocratic rule marked by political upheaval and bloodshed, but which also witnessed democratic parliamentary elections that saw Islamist groups score a crushing victory.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, in power since Mubarak’s ouster, has vowed to restore civilian rule by the end of June, after a president is elected, but many fear its withdrawal from politics will be just an illusion.
The army, with its vast and opaque economic power, wants to keep its budget a secret by remaining exempt from parliamentary scrutiny, maintain control of military-related legislation and secure immunity from prosecution.
Mubarak, 84 and ailing, is being held in a military hospital on the outskirts of Cairo where he awaits the verdict of his murder trial on June 2.
The former strongman, ousted in a popular uprising last year, is accused of involvement in the killing of some 850 protesters during the uprising and of corruption.
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