Arabs welcome declaration
THE Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi yesterday officially became winner of Egypt's first post-revolutionary presidential election, bringing an end to days of feverish speculation amid increased divisions and polarisation in the Arab world's most populous nation.
According to results declared yesterday by Egypt's election panel, Morsi won with 51.73 per cent of the vote while the second-placed candidate, Ahmed Shafiq – Mubarak's final prime minister – took 48 per cent.
Specifically, Morsi won 13,230,131 votes against Shafiq, who clinched 12,347,380, according to agency reports.
The announcement prompted scenes of jubilation in Cairo's Tahrir Square, where Morsi's supporters had gathered for days, as well as a sense of mild relief from a wider world worried about a protracted political standoff in the country.
They have been maintaining a vigil there in protest at the series of decrees by the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which they said are designed to reduce or constrain the power of the president, and entrench that of the military.
Also, Palestinians in Gaza are not left out in the celebrated yesterday, with Hamas hailing the declaration a "historic moment."
Senior Hamas official, Mahmud Zahar said that the victory was "a historic moment and a new era in the history of Egypt," as Gazans fired volleys of celebratory gunfire in the streets of the Palestinian territory.
Other Arab governments and leaders have also welcomed the election of the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate. But in Israel, which has a 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman, Mark Regev, said his office was "not saying anything at this stage."
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