Brotherhood Mursi: Egypt’s New President

Local Editor

The Egyptian revolution finally bore fruit: Hosni Mubarak regime ended and the country was given its first non-military president.

Mohammed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood won Egypt's presidential run-off beating former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq.
Mursi, 60, was named the fifth president of Egypt after narrowly beating off competition from rival Shafiq, in the presidential polls held on June 16-17. Announcing the results, the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission head Farouq Sultan said Mursi, won 51.73 per cent of the vote, beating his rival Shafiq.

Mursi won 13,230,131 votes against Shafiq who clinched 12,347,380. Sultan said the election commission had upheld some of the 466 complaints by the candidates, but that the election result still stood. Both candidates had already declared victory in the hours before announcement leading to a tense stand-off between the two camps.
The announcement prompted scenes of jubilation in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square, where thousands of Mursi's supporters had gathered since Friday. "God is greatest" and "down with military rule", they chanted as some set off fire crackers minutes after the election commission formally declared the results.

Hours after the election commission declared him the winner of this month's run-off vote, the new President insisted that the revolution that ousted Mubarak would continue until its goals were met.
In his first address after being declared the country's next leader, Mursi said: "The revolution continues, until all its demands are met."
"We will preserve all international treaties and charters ... we come in peace," Mursi said in a speech broadcast live on state television,.

Mursi also vowed he will be a leader "for all Egyptians" and called for "national unity after a polarizing race."
"I will be a president for all Egyptians," Mursi said just hours after he was declared president following a deeply divisive race against Ahmed Shafiq, the last premier to serve under ousted president Mubarak.
"I call on you, great people of Egypt ... to strengthen our national unity," he said, adding that national unity "is the only way out of these difficult times."

Mursi, who resigned from the Muslim Brotherhood to take the top job, thanked the "martyrs" of the uprising for the victory.
"Today, the people have become the source of authority," added the president-elect.
"We will not allow ourselves to interfere in the domestic affairs of any nation and we will not allow anyone to interfere in our affairs and let everyone know that Egypt makes its own decisions although it calls for peace with the entire world," Mursi went on to say.

Earlier on Sunday, Mursi saluted the judiciary and the army for overseeing the democratic process.
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 the country since the 1952 Free Officers' Coup, all came from the army's ranks.


Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org