Muslim Brotherhood Claims Victory in Egyptian Presidential Vote

Monday, 18 June 2012 01:28

Written by Administrator

By the CNN Wire Staff

The Muslim Brotherhood declared that its candidate won Egypt's historic presidential election this weekend, making the claim hours after openly challenging the nation's military rulers over its dissolution of parliament.

With several million votes still to be counted, the state-run Al-Ahram news website around 4:15 a.m. Monday (10:15 p.m. Sunday ET ) showed the Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi leading with about 5,648,000 votes compared with about 4,705,000 for opponent Ahmed Shafik, who served as Egypt's last prime minister in the waning days of Hosni Mubarak's regime.

Yet the Islamist group, citing what it said were all-but-complete official numbers released to its representatives at polling stations nationwide, asserted that Morsi had won by capturing 52.5% of the overall vote.

The official vote count was scheduled to be finished at some point Monday, with final results to be announced Thursday.

Whoever they declare the winner will become the North African nation's first president since Mubarak, who was ousted in a wave of popular unrest last year after three decades in power.

The next president will wade into a country with a political system mired in controversy, confusion and confrontation, much of it due to events over the past week.

Egypt has no constitution in place, though military rulers have vowed to appoint a 100-person panel to craft such a document. And a court ruling just days before the runoff appeared to invalidate an Islamist-dominated legislative body and then saw the military swiftly move to dissolve that parliament ahead of the election.

But the Muslim Brotherhood, whose Freedom and Justice Party had won a majority of legislative seats, is bucking this act to dissolve parliament.

Mahmoud Ghozlan, a spokesman for the Islamist group, called the move "unconstitutional" and said parliamentary speaker Mohamed al-Katatni will convene legislators on Tuesday.

"This parliament was chosen by 30 million voters over a period of three months, and the legislative power was handed to (lawmakers) chosen by the people," Ghozlan said. "It is unconstitutional to dissolve it."

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