Luxor4u

Five hundred days after they overthrew Hosni Mubarak, the nation will finally have a new leader on Sunday.

Egyptians will soon know the winner of a divisive presidential election after the results were delayed following victory claims by both candidates that have sparked tensions between the rival camps.

The electoral commission overseeing the contest between Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi and former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq said it would announce the official winner at 3:00 pm (13:00 GMT) on Sunday.

By Saturday evening, hundreds of Brotherhood supporters determined to occupy Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square until the election result was published, had been joined by others, swelling their numbers to the thousands.

They are demonstrating against what they say is a power grab by the military and an attempt to limit presidential power.

Supporters of former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq and the country's military rulers are also holding parallel protests in the suburb of Nasr city, north of Cairo.

This was the largest show of force by pro-Shafiq, pro-military demonstrators since the election.

They raised Egyptian flags and posters of Shafiq and chanted, "Down, down with the rule of the Guide", referring to the title of the Brotherhood's movement leader.

The election commission overseeing the divisive contest between Mohamed Morsi, the Brotherhood candidate, and Ahmed Shafiq said it would announce the official winner on Sunday.

"Farouk Sultan, the head of the presidential election commission, will announce the results of the presidential election run-off on Sunday at 3pm (13:00 GMT)," Hatem Bagato, the commission's secretary-general, said in a statement on Saturday.

Both Morsi and Shafiq have claimed victory in the election for a successor to Hosni Mubarak, escalating tensions between the rival camps that have deepened after the electoral commission delayed announcing the official outcome.

The delay in the announcement of the result of the June 16-17 runoff, initially scheduled for Thursday, has raised suspicions that the outcome of the election is being negotiated rather than counted.

Al Jazeera's Jamal El Shayyal, reporting from Cairo, said there is an increased level of mistrust in Egypt.

"Egypt has become more and more unpredictable day by day," he said. "There is an increased level of mistrust, and this will be one of the most difficult challenges for the new president to overcome, trying to bridge the differences between the sides."

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeas ... 87955.html

1OO to 1 on Shafik, with USA's money their Generals & Egypt's Generals I think it's a forgone conclusion, mind you I'd rather go for Moursi the intellectuals choice but in reality there was no choice at all. Democracy ? yeh right...

Who2 wrote:1OO to 1 on Shafik, with USA's money their Generals & Egypt's Generals I think it's a forgone conclusion, mind you I'd rather go for Moursi the intellectuals choice but in reality there was no choice at all. Democracy ? yeh right...

Maybe Dr, but I notice that American foreign policy is swiftly moving away from it east to its West, where it seems its greater future is. I am sure it is quite aware of the poor response it has had from its so called friends in Europe when it has had to deal with various conflicts in this area over the past 20 years, the support shown has been **** poor. To give you an example here, lets take the Afganistan problem, no one has ever won a war there, however the whole of Europe agrees that it has become a haven for terrorist activities against the West, however the most powerful nation in Europe, Germany can only offer a hand full of troops which incidently are placed in the very north of Afganistan, where there is no war, and even if there were trouble there, German troops are under strickt order to perform a non-combat roll only.

With California state, on America's west coast being in the top 10 as to wealth with actual total wealth of nations, add to that the great future of trade with India, then China 2nd in the world for trade, not to mention Japan, we can quite easily see why ealier this year Australia has agreed to allow new American military bases there, plus other such new bases in other parts of the Paciffic.
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Now, as America looks over its shoulder to its East and sees the mess that is Israel, the Palastinians, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Egypt not to mention the Euro problem that will take maybe 15 years to sort out add to this the tens of Billions of $ to pay for these such conflicts, its loss of so many of its young service men, then to crown it all, the less that supportive roll its so called friends in greater Europe and the Med have shown.

It is my belief that the U.S.A., may say quite a bit about the problems of the said areas including Egypt, but as for aid, I think little will come that way. As for future conflicts in this now dark grey area, that is Europe and the Middle East, Europe may get a real shock when it ask for NATO help which is infact American.