Violence flares after Egypt election results

Youths demon­strate in Tahrir Square to protest the out­come of the Egypt­ian pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Cairo, Egypt, Mon­day. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Fredrik Persson)

AYA BATRAWY

Asso­ci­ated Press

CAIRO — A mob set fire late Mon­day to the cam­paign head­quar­ters of one of the two Egypt­ian pres­i­den­tial politi­cians fac­ing each other in a runoff that will decide a new leader after last year’s pop­u­lar upris­ing, the first sign of unrest after the vot­ing yielded divi­sive candidates.

The attack on Ahmed Shafiq’s office came just hours after the country’s elec­tion com­mis­sion announced that he would face the Mus­lim Brotherhood’s can­di­date, Mohammed Morsi, in a June 16–17 runoff.

The sec­ond round pit­ting Shafiq, who was ousted Pres­i­dent Hosni Mubarak’s last prime min­is­ter, against Morsi, backed by the country’s most pow­er­ful Islamist move­ment, is a night­mare sce­nario for the thou­sands of Egyp­tians who took to the streets last year to demand regime change, free­dom and social equality.

Many of the so-called rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies say they want nei­ther a return to the old regime nor reli­gious rule.

“The choice can’t be between a reli­gious state and an auto­cratic state. Then we have done noth­ing,” said Ahmed Bassiouni, 35, who was sit­ting in Cairo’s down­town Tahrir Square in the midst of a grow­ing protest.

In an upscale neigh­bor­hood of Cairo, mobs of young men used bricks to smash the win­dows of Shafiq’s head­quar­ters, toss­ing out cam­paign signs and tear­ing up his posters. Then they set fire to the build­ing. There were no reports of injuries. Police arrested eight people.

His cam­paign blamed sup­port­ers of left­ist can­di­date Hamdeen Sabahi, who came in third in the race, and back­ers of another los­ing can­di­date, Khaled Ali, who was protest­ing the elec­tion results Mon­day evening in Tahrir Square, the cen­ter of last year’s uprising.

Shafiq, also a for­mer air force com­man­der, was forced out of office as prime min­is­ter by pro­test­ers shortly after Mubarak’s fall. He has since pre­sented him­self as a fig­ure who can restore calm to a coun­try wracked by 15 months of some­times vio­lent protests and dete­ri­o­ra­tion in inter­nal secu­rity. He has expressed a zero-tolerance atti­tude toward protests, reflect­ing his back­ground in the mil­i­tary and in the for­mer regime, which put down protests with bru­tal force and jailed opponents.

Shortly after the pro­test­ers ran­sacked the cam­paign office, fire trucks and police arrived as sev­eral hun­dred of Shafiq’s sup­port­ers gath­ered out­side the build­ing, car­ry­ing his pic­ture and chant­ing slo­gans against the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, which con­trols the par­lia­ment and is now seek­ing the presidency.

“The Broth­er­hood are ene­mies of God!,” chanted the crowd.

The Morsi-Shafiq runoff is a polar­iz­ing con­test. It mir­rors the con­flict between Mubarak, him­self a career air force offi­cer like Shafiq, and the Islamists he jailed and tor­tured through­out his years in power. But it side­lines the mostly young, sec­u­lar activists who led the pop­u­lar upris­ing last year.

The com­mis­sion reported Mon­day that Morsi won close to 5.8 mil­lion votes, or almost 25 per­cent, while Shafiq received 5.5 mil­lion votes, or nearly 24 per­cent. Sabahi, a social­ist, fin­ished third with 4.8 mil­lion votes, or about 21 per­cent. Fourth place went to mod­er­ate Islamist Abdel-Moneim Abol­fo­toh. Turnout was about 50 percent.

In Tahrir Square, sev­eral thou­sands pro­test­ers chanted slo­gans against the mil­i­tary rulers who took over after Mubarak’s ouster. Pro­test­ers have clashed fre­quently with the mil­i­tary in street protests that have killed more than 100 peo­ple, charg­ing that the mil­i­tary is per­pet­u­at­ing the repres­sive prac­tices of the Mubarak regime and bungling the tran­si­tion to a new, elected government.

Pro­test­ers also chanted slo­gans against both Morsi and Shafiq, say­ing they will not allow Egypt to be ruled by one party again nor allow the for­mer regime to regain power.

“Free­dom! Free­dom!” the crowds chanted, fists pump­ing in the air.

Some were demand­ing that a law approved by par­lia­ment ban­ning for­mer high-level regime offi­cials from run­ning in the elec­tion be imple­mented. That could apply to Shafiq. Egypt’s Con­sti­tu­tional Court is set to look at the law just four days before the runoff.

Oth­ers charge that last week’s elec­tion, with 13 can­di­dates, was rigged, though observers said the vote was gen­er­ally free.

In the Mediter­ranean port city of Alexan­dria, where Sabahi, a favorite among many rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies, won the most votes, pro­test­ers tore down and burned large Shafiq and Morsi posters and protested against mil­i­tary rule.

In the Nile Delta provinces of Dakahliya and Man­soura, pro­test­ers took to the streets in sim­i­lar protests. Secu­rity offi­cials said pro­test­ers in Man­soura tried to attack the cam­paign offices of Morsi and Shafiq, but sup­port­ers of both can­di­dates stopped the crowd.

The protests come just one day after Sabahi and Abol­fo­toh, whose sup­port­ers backed the pop­u­lar upris­ing, filed appeals to the elec­tion com­mis­sion to delay announc­ing the first round results until alle­ga­tions of voter fraud could be inves­ti­gated. Their appeals were rejected Monday.

Speak­ing to reporters Mon­day, Abol­fo­toh said “vio­la­tions threat­ened the integrity of the election.”

“It is impos­si­ble under any cir­cum­stances for me to say with a national con­science that these elec­tions were clean,” Abol­fo­toh said.

Posted by AP News on May 28 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.