Pengerusi Parti Pembebasan dan Keadilan (FJP), Dr. Muhammad Morsi memenangi pilihan raya presiden Mesir selepas tumbangya Hosni.
Pilihanraya presiden Mesir telah berlangsung pada 16 dan 17 Jun dan
menyaksikan Dr. Morsi Pengerusi FJP yang diasaskan kepada pergerakan
Ikhwanul Muslimin mendahului lawannya Ahmed Shafik dengan 51.8% undi.
Ini adalah pilihanraya presiden pertama republik itu pasca Revolusi
Mesir 2011.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Staking its claim to
Egypt's presidency, the
Muslim Brotherhood
rallied in Cairo on Tuesday to demand the ruling generals hand over
real power, following moves by the army that its U.S. ally labeled an
assault on democracy.
Up to 10,000 gathered as darkness fell on Tahrir
Square, cradle of last year's Arab Spring revolution, chanting the name
of the Islamist they say won the weekend's presidential election and
condemning measures to curb his powers that will leave much legal
authority in the hands of the army for months to come.
The election result is due to be announced later this week.
"Down, down with military rule!" chanted the crowd, one
of the biggest in months at the capital's protest rendezvous but
showing no sign of seeking confrontation with troops as
the Brotherhood treads warily through a shifting political arena.
"We are here to finish the revolution," said Ahmed Badawy, a
Brotherhood member bussed in, like many, from the provinces.
"We are showing the military council we can see that it
is trying to reproduce the old regime and abort the revolution."
In a mark of the movement's desire to put violence
behind it and assure Egyptians, fellow Arabs and anxious world powers
that it can rule a democracy, one man held a poster of presidential
candidate Mohamed Morsy reading "Egypt's Erdogan".
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is a model, for some, of modern Islamic leadership in a nation also long used to influential generals.
"The military council should stick to what it is
supposed to do," said the man holding the sign, Hassan al-Attar, 60,
adding they were clinging to power for fear of joining ousted autocrat
Hosni Mubarak - on trial for oppression and corruption.
The dissolution of a new, Islamist-led parliament on
the eve of the presidential election run-off, and a decree issued as it
ended which took new powers for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (
SCAF), have been widely condemned in Egypt and abroad.
But weariness after the turmoil and economic hardship
of the past 16 months, and a lack of enthusiasm for two presidential
contenders from the familiar old adversaries of the army and the
Brotherhood, have dimmed many rebellious spirits.
Despite calls to rally, few of the young, urban
activists who first launched the revolt, turned out on Tahrir on
Tuesday.
While many feel betrayed by the generals, who pushed
out Mubarak to appease the revolt but now seem to be entrenching their
own privileges, the latest anger has not turned violent; neither the
Brotherhood nor the army, engaged in a hesitant new symbiosis over the
past year, seem anxious to start a fight.
WESTERN DILEMMA
The rise of Islamists, not just in Egypt but other Arab
states where autocrats were overthrown last year, has also left Western
powers with a dilemma, so that criticism of SCAF's moves seems unlikely
to bring any immediate sanction for a military elite which has been
funded for decades by the United States.
The Pentagon, which gave the Middle East's biggest army
$1.3 billion in annual aid this year, rebuked Field Marshal Hussein
Tantawi's military council on Monday and urged it to hand "full power"
to civilians, as it had promised to do by July 1.
The State Department said it was "concerned by
decisions that appear to prolong the military's hold on power" and urged
SCAF "to restore popular and international confidence in the democratic
transition process by following through on their stated commitments".
But worries in Washington's vocal ally Israel about
Islamist leaders in Cairo reneging on a 1979 peace treaty, or aiding
Gaza's Hamas militants, mean Washington is unlikely to alienate its
Egyptian military allies for the sake of the Brotherhood.
A militant attack on Israel's border was a reminder of
the lawlessness Egypt's revolution has brought to the Sinai desert. But
Israeli officials say the fact that U.S. aid is conditional on peace
with Israel will keep Egypt's Islamists in line.
"Any rise of an Islamic regime ... is worrisome," Vice
Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said. "But on the other hand, Egypt today is
dependent to a large extent on the peace agreement."
Egypt's election committee refuses to give results from
the weekend's presidential run-off before Thursday. The Brotherhood
says its data show Morsy won by 52 percent to 48 over former general
Ahmed Shafik, Mubarak's last prime minister.
Shafik's camp shot back that they have a one-point lead.
But army and election committee sources say the count
does show Morsy winning. The military seems to be prepared for that.
"SQUARE ONE"
Where the political system goes now is unclear. What
had been seen as the final step in a "transition to democracy", the
inauguration of a president, now seems only a beginning.
"We're back at square one," Hussein Ibrahim, a senior
Brotherhood member of the dissolved parliament, told Reuters.
"After Egyptians waited for the election of a new
president to end the transitional period, we discovered that by electing
a new president we are restarting the transitional period."
At a news conference, a spokesman for the Brotherhood
played down talk of head-on conflict with an army with which the
movement has lately developed a cautious working relationship.
"Why do we rush to the word 'confrontation'?" said
Yasser Ali. "We do not seek any confrontation with anyone. No one in
Egypt wants confrontation ... There has to be dialogue between national
forces, and the people alone must decide their fate."
The secretive SCAF has appeared to make up rules as it
goes along for what is supposed to be progress toward democracy, giving
it considerable flexibility in interpreting any rules.
With Egypt's economy, notably its tourist trade,
suffering badly, the country is looking for financing from the IMF. For
the generals to maintain influence but avoid taking all the blame for
economic troubles, they have an interest in sharing at least some
responsibility with civilian politicians.
Speaking publicly on Monday, generals from SCAF
insisted they were still committed to a full handover of power and
blamed squabbling politicians for the failure to draft a constitution.
One noted that the new president was free to appoint
his own government, which could then draft laws that the head of state
could pass into law. But the process will involve SCAF, in its role as
legislator, able to amend or blocks laws as it sees fit.
Another general pointed out it was not
SCAF
but the constitutional court, staffed by judges from the old regime,
which annulled results of January's parliamentary election.
In another potentially explosive judicial saga on
Tuesday, a court adjourned until September one of several civil cases
that challenge
the Brotherhood's very right to exist or engage in politics, using old laws aimed specifically at the Islamists.
Mubarak, now 84, was sentenced to life imprisonment on
June 2. His health is poor, although details have often been vague. On
Tuesday security sources said he was being transferred to a military
hospital after a heart attack which put him in a coma.
(Additional reporting by Tom Pfeiffer, Edmund Blair,
Shaimaa Fayed, Patrick Werr, Shaimaa Fayed, Alastair Macdonald, Saad
Hussein and Samia Nakhoul in Cairo, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem and
Andrew Quinn and David Alexander in Washington; Writing by Alastair
Macdonald; Editing by Louise Ireland)
…
[Updated at 6:05 p.m. ET] Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has died in Tora Prison Hospital in Cairo, according to media reports. He was 84.