Egypt's Supreme Presidential Election Commission (SPEC) has just announced that Mohammed Mursi defeated Ahmed Shafiq in the runoff election for the office of President of Egypt. Mursi is the candidate of the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Shafiq is the unacknowledged candidate of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the military junta that has ruled Egypt since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.
The Muslim Brotherhood's presidential candidate, Mohamed Mursi, has been named the fifth president of Egypt after narrowly beating off competition from rival, Ahmed Shafiq, in the hotly-contested presidential elections' runoffs.
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Mursi's win in Egypt's first-ever genuine multi-candidate presidential elections puts an end to a 60-year military monopoly of the position. His predecessors Mohamed Naguib, Gamal Abdel-Nasser, Anwar El-Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, who ruled tthe country since the 1952 Free Officers' Coup, all came from the army's ranks.
The inauguration of Mursi, nonetheless, does not imply that the military institution will loosen its grip on power. Recent developments give the military junta extra authorities at the expense of the president's.
Mursi obtained 51.73% of the vote to Shafiq's 48.27%.
The next weeks will be very interesting in light of recent decisions by SCAF and by Egyptian courts which have cumulatively dissolved Parliament, dissolved the Constituent Assembly in charge of drafting the new constitution, entrenched SCAF's executive and legislative power and effectively curtailed presidential powers. Whatever real power Mursi holds will have been assigned to him by SCAF rather than inherited by the office of the presidency. We will soon learn, I suspect, the concessions granted by both SCAF and the Brotherhood in negotiating the results of this election.
Egypt may have her first non-military President, but it would be naïve in the extreme to presume that SCAF's military-security state will not be managing Egypt's democratization for some time to come.
So, with the announcement of Mursi's victory this "Egyptian Elections" series comes to a close. My thanks to the few folks who have viewed, commented and/or recommended parts of this, and my sincere thanks to the Rescue Rangers who have kindly elevated a number of these diaries to the Community Spotlight. It is very much appreciated.
For a variety of reasons, Egypt has essentially disappeared from dKos' collective radar since the flush of illusory revolutionary successes in Midan Tahrir last Spring. No doubt, our primary focus is and should be our own upcoming presidential election. Yet to the extent that Egypt is a critical element in U.S. foreign policy in the region, I must consider the ever-diminishing attention to Egypt to be our collective failure.
I will of course continue to follow political developments and events in Egypt. In addition to concerns for the welfare of friends and colleagues in Egypt, I have my own personal and professional stakes there.