Egypt’s Shafiq Claiming Victory in Disputed President Vote
Court to Consider Banning Mursi's Party for Religious Ties
The overnight count of Egypt’s votes came to an end Monday morning with reports in the press that Dr. Mohammed Mursi had won a close, but substantial victory in the presidential election. His opponent, Air Marshall Ahmed Shafiq, is contesting that claim today, with his campaign saying he actually won.
Shafiq spokesman Ahmed Sarhan slammed the Mursi campaign for “fake results” leaked to the media, saying that the count wasn’t even half finished when he announced victory.
The preliminary counts released to the media, as reported by Egyptian papers, still show Mursi holding a lead of around 900,000 votes, but the official, final vote count isn’t expected to be released until Thursday.
Dr. Mursi’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won a substantial plurality in parliament, though the military junta has since dissolved parliament entirely and claimed lawmaking powers for itself. The FJP might not even exist soon, as a new lawsuit is pressing one of the junta-dominated court to ban them, and the Muslim Brotherhood which is their umbrella organization, for being “religious-based” parties.
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Bud Weiser
June 20th, 2012 at 1:48 pm
This would be funny if it weren't so sad. And Amerikans should be taking notice, the same spectacle is coming soon to a theater near them.
John Ellis
June 20th, 2012 at 1:50 pm
“religious-based” parties.
This is the real issue in this planet of the ingrates, is there such a thing as moral good, a true morality as opposed to a fake morality? And if so, why must we be a slave to good and under penalty of death be compelled to obey a law of good?
Anyway, why give up our freewill, the freedom to pursue good or misery, as we perceive it to be.
Nathan
June 20th, 2012 at 1:55 pm
Shafiq is lucky for the Egyptian didn't know the ABC's of revolution. This guy, by reason of being Mubarak's prime minister, should have been hanged a long time ago.
John_Muhammad
June 20th, 2012 at 5:09 pm
I'm shocked- SHOCKED, I tell you, to find the US-backed Egyptian military behind this!
See? THAT is how democracy works- if you don't like the results, just have your military (which just happens to have all the guns) order a court to declare the winning party of an election to be illegal, and put your own guy in office. It doesn't matter what the people vote for, it doesn't matter if the whole world is watching and see exactly what you're doing- all that matters is that you extend your power a little but more. Democratically, of course.