How a Morsi-Shafiq Runoff Could be Good for Egypt
Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi came in first in the elections, with Ahmed Shafiq, a former Mubarak prime minister, following closely behind. Egyptian blogger Bassem Sabry says the only way to save the country is for revolutionaries to cooperate with a Brotherhood that commits itself to moderation.
The first round of the Egyptian presidential election results has left both the Islamist and revolutionary political camps with a sense of pride and horrid disappointment. For the Muslim Brotherhood, there is a sense of satisfaction that they managed to promote Mohamed Morsi, a non-star candidate, to the forefront of the vote with a respectable 25.30 percent of the vote.
However, the massive vote count for Ahmed Shafiq, coming at a close second with 23.74 percent, seems to, at least partially, represent significant frustration with the immediate state of Egypt after the revolution as well as a direct backlash against the current, most dominant and visible force in post-revolutionary Egypt, the Brotherhood and (slightly less so) the Salafists. It is a considerably angry and reactionary blow to these Islamist forces, and it is happening only months after they collectively won nearly 75 percent of the seats in Egypt’s parliamentary elections. Of course, it must be said that it seemingly also represents some dissatisfaction with other revolutionary forces as well, including the protesting street.
Add to that the surprisingly strong showing by non-Islamist candidates such as neo-Nasserist Hamdeen Sabbahi and (the astonishingly under-performing, yet still somewhat strong) Amr Moussa, and a starkly different image is presented than that of the unchallenged Islamist domination of the parliamentary elections.
For revolutionary and non-Islamist Egyptians, the first round of the presidential elections were also a mixed affair. There is immense pride in the sudden meteoric rise of Hamdeen Sabbahi, and somewhat in the strong showing of moderate Abul-Fotouh, who some consider as post-Islamist rather than Islamist. But there is genuine disappointment at Sabbahi and Abul-Fotouh’s loss, especially the narrow margin of less than 2 percent. There is a true sense of a missed historic opportunity, especially had there been success with the proposal that the revolutionary forces unit behind one so-called “Revolutionary Candidate.”
