Brotherhood claims lead as Egypt vote count begins

Egypt­ian sol­diers and police­men stand guard­ing as women line up out­side a polling sta­tion in Cairo, Egypt, Thurs­day. In a wide-open race that will define the nation’s future polit­i­cal course, Egyp­tians voted Thurs­day on the sec­ond day of a land­mark pres­i­den­tial elec­tion that will pro­duce a suc­ces­sor to long­time author­i­tar­ian ruler Hosni Mubarak. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

HAMZA HENDAWI, MAGGIE MICHAEL

Asso­ci­ated Press

CAIRO — The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood quickly staked a claim Thurs­day for its can­di­date to advance to a runoff vote, say­ing its exit polls showed him lead­ing in Egypt’s land­mark pres­i­den­tial elec­tion to suc­ceed ousted leader Hosni Mubarak.

As vote-counting began, exit polls by sev­eral Arab tele­vi­sion sta­tions also sug­gested the Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi was ahead of the pack of 13 can­di­dates. The reli­a­bil­ity of the var­i­ous exit sur­veys was not known, and a few hours after the end of two days of vot­ing, only a tiny per­cent­age of the bal­lots had been counted.

But the swift­ness of the Brotherhood’s claim showed its eager­ness to plant its flag and estab­lish in the pub­lic eye that Morsi had at least won entry into a sec­ond round vote. There are five promi­nent can­di­dates, but none is expected to win out­right in the first round. A run-off between the two lead­ing con­tenders would be held June 16–17.

The first truly com­pet­i­tive pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Egypt’s his­tory turned into a heated bat­tle between Islamist can­di­dates and sec­u­lar fig­ures rooted in Mubarak’s old regime. The most polar­iz­ing fig­ures in the race were Morsi and for­mer air force com­man­der and for­mer prime min­is­ter Ahmed Shafiq, a vet­eran of Mubarak’s rule.

The Broth­er­hood is hop­ing for a pres­i­den­tial vic­tory to seal its polit­i­cal dom­i­na­tion of Egypt, which would be a dra­matic turn­around from the decades it was repressed under Mubarak. It already holds nearly half of par­lia­ment after vic­to­ries in elec­tions late last year.

The group has promised a “renais­sance” of Egypt, not only reform­ing Mubarak-era cor­rup­tion and reviv­ing decrepit infra­struc­ture, but also bring­ing a greater degree of rule by Islamic law. That prospect has alarmed more mod­er­ate Mus­lims, sec­u­lar Egyp­tians and the Chris­t­ian minor­ity, who all fear restric­tions on civil rights and worry that the Broth­er­hood shows sim­i­lar dom­i­neer­ing ten­den­cies as Mubarak.

“I think we are on the verge of a new era. We trusted God, we trusted in the peo­ple, we trusted in our party,” promi­nent Broth­er­hood fig­ure Essam el-Erian said at a news con­fer­ence at which the group claimed its lead.

Morsi’s cam­paign spokesman, Murad Mohammed Ali, cited exit polls con­ducted by Broth­er­hood cam­paign work­ers nation­wide, though he declined to give per­cent­ages for Morsi’s lead.

Regional tele­vi­sion chan­nels, cit­ing their own exit polls, also placed Morsi as the top fin­isher, with a tus­sle for sec­ond place between Shafiq, mod­er­ate Islamist Abdel-Moneim Abol­fo­toh and left­ist Hamdeen Sabahi.

Across the coun­try, elec­tion work­ers cracked open the trans­par­ent bal­lot boxes — sealed by serial-numbered plas­tic bands to ensure they had not been tam­pered with — and began work­ing their way through the paper bal­lots. By 1 a.m. Fri­day, four hours after polls closed, results from about 5 per­cent of the 13,000 polling sta­tions emerged, putting Morsi on top at 35 per­cent, fol­lowed by Shafiq with 22 per­cent and Abol­fo­toh with 16 percent.

Voter turnout appeared far lighter on Thurs­day than the open­ing day of bal­lot­ing Wednes­day. But those in line where still revved up on the fer­vor of choos­ing after decades of hav­ing no voice in decid­ing their leader.

“I like the per­son­al­ity of Shafiq. He is strong enough to lift the coun­try,” said Suheir Abdel-Mumin, one of sev­eral women stand­ing in line wait­ing to vote in the Cairo dis­trict of el-Zawiya al-Hamra.

Somaiya Imam, still unde­cided on whom to choose, replied with a ref­er­ence to Islamist can­di­dates, say­ing: “Don’t you think we should vote for the can­di­date who holds the Quran?”

“We voted for them before and they let us down,” Abdel-Mumin responded, refer­ring to the Brotherhood’s vic­to­ries in last year’s par­lia­men­tary elec­tions. “They want every­thing — the pres­i­dency, par­lia­ment and gov­ern­ment. They are never satisfied.”

A woman stand­ing behind the two joined in: “But he (Shafiq) is a Mubarak associate.”

The Broth­er­hood faced a back­lash from many of the vot­ers who sup­ported it in the par­lia­ment elec­tion but later grew dis­il­lu­sioned. Some accused it of try­ing to overly monop­o­lize power and break­ing ear­lier promises not to run for pres­i­dent. Oth­ers felt it sim­ply had not pro­duced any accom­plish­ments with its par­lia­ment dom­i­nance — though the rul­ing mil­i­tary has severely ham­pered the parliament.

Still, Morsi enjoyed the might of the Brotherhood’s well-organized elec­toral machine, the nation’s strongest.

“We need a pres­i­dent who gets rid of the for­mer cor­rupt and oppres­sive sys­tem and brings Egypt back to the posi­tion it deserves eco­nom­i­cally and inter­na­tion­ally,” said Rizk Mohammed, a con­trac­tor vot­ing with his fam­ily in Cairo — all for Morsi. He defended the Broth­er­hood against claims it was try­ing to monop­o­lize all power, say­ing pro-Mubarak media were foment­ing that idea.

Also, the anti-Islamist vote was divided. Shafiq and for­mer for­eign min­is­ter Amr Moussa and Shafiq split the votes of many who craved a famil­iar face that could bring sta­bil­ity. Sabahi, as well as Abol­fo­toh, siphoned votes of those who could not bear to vote for a “feloul” — or “rem­nant” of the old regime — or a hard-core Islamist.

Moussa, who had been lead­ing in many pre-election polls, appeared to have suf­fered the most.

Dur­ing the day Thurs­day, he blasted Shafiq in an inter­view on Al-Arabiya tele­vi­sion, accus­ing him of plan­ning to bring back Mubarak’s regime and demand­ing he quit the race.

“The Shafiq cam­paign is call­ing for the re-creation of the past and it will take the coun­try back to the time before the rev­o­lu­tion,” Moussa said, look­ing rat­tled with his hair unkempt.

He also made a last-minute appear­ance to reporters out­side his Cairo cam­paign head­quar­ters with a plea for sup­port­ers to vote — a sug­ges­tion his own exit polling showed him faltering.

“I call on all Egyp­tians, male and female, to go out in these last two hours and vote,” he said.

Both Shafiq and the Brotherhood’s Morsi have repeat­edly spo­ken of the dan­gers, real or imag­i­nary, of the other becom­ing pres­i­dent. Morsi has said there would be mas­sive street protests if a “feloul” wins, argu­ing it could only be the result of rigging.

Shafiq, on his part, has said it would be “unac­cept­able” if an Islamist takes the pres­i­den­tial office, echo­ing the rhetoric of Mubarak, his long­time men­tor who devoted much of his 29-year rule to fight­ing Islamists. Still, Shafiq’s cam­paign has said it would accept the election’s result.

Reports of vot­ing vio­la­tions seemed rel­a­tively lim­ited. The Egypt­ian Asso­ci­a­tion for Sup­port­ing Demo­c­ra­tic Devel­op­ment reported fist­fights between sup­port­ers of Morsi, Shafiq, Abol­fo­toh and Moussa, and some inci­dents of money being given to vot­ers. It also reported some attempts to influ­ence vot­ers at the polls, includ­ing women wear­ing the all-covering veil cam­paign­ing for Morsi inside polling centers.

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Posted by AP News on May 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.