Egypt’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood urges people to rally behind its presidential candidate Mohamad Mursi who is likely to go on the run-off next month along with former prime minister Ahmad Shafiq.
Egypt’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood urges people to rally behind its presidential candidate Mohamad Mursi who is likely to go on the run-off next month along with former prime minister Ahmad Shafiq.
The Brotherhood on Friday declared Mursi the front-runner in the May 23-24 election after all the votes had been counted, with Shafiq, who served as the last PM during Hosni Mubarak’s rule, in second place.
Several newspaper websites also put Mursi and shafiq out in front after the voting on Wednesday and Thursday.
A run-off between Shafiq and Mursi will further polarize a nation that rose up against the authoritarian Mubarak 15 months ago but has since suffered a spike in violence and a declining economy.
The electoral commission is expected to declare the official results on Tuesday, but tallies of the vote counting provided by the official MENA news agency and Al-Ahram newspaper showed Mursi in first place and Shafiq in second.
"We have complete numbers now. Complete, after adding expatriate votes," said Essam al-Erian, the deputy head of the Brotherhood's political arm.
Erian told a press conference it was "completely clear" that Mursi and Shafiq had topped the presidential vote and would compete in the run-off on June 16-17.
He said Mursi won 25.3 percent of the vote, and Shafiq 24 percent. Pan-Arab socialist Hamdeen Sabahi won 22 percent, Erian said.
Another Brotherhood official told AFP that Mursi would personally call the movement's bitter rival Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a former Brotherhood leader who ran independently of the movement.
"We call on all sincere political and national forces to unite to protect the revolution and to achieve the pledges we took before our great nation," a Brotherhood statement said.
"Today we face desperate attempts to reproduce the old regime," it said.
Aboul Fotouh's campaign earlier issued a statement calling on Egyptians to confront "the corrupt regime" in the run-offs, in a veiled reference to Shafiq.
