Mohammed Morsi, Egyptian Presidential  Winner

Muslim Brotherhood Peace and freedom Party Candidate

While the world media breathed a sigh of temporary relief about the results of  Greek elections, yesterday with  little impact  on the  crises in the Euro Zone, the EU and world trade, they have yet to focus on the Presidential victory by Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi.  His election to Egypt’s Presidency follows the High Court ruling declaring illegal  the Parliamentary elections over the period from November 2011 to January 20102 .  The Muslim Brotherhood party took  nearly half the seats in those parliamentary runoff elections.  The Muslim Brotherhood Peace and Freedom Party has protested the court ruling.  That supposed ‘soft coup’ by the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces  (SCAF)  didn’t boost the voter interest in their preferred candidate, Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last Prime Minister.  Further  Christian Copts, a significant minority in Egypt, have good reason to be concerned about a future Egyptian government led by Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood with support from  fundamentalist Salaist preachers and Qatar-backed tele preacher, the anti-Semitic Yusuf al Qaradawi.  Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri urged  fundamentalist Egyptian Muslims to vote for Morsi.    Moreover conservative  Egyptian  Muslim women came out in droves to cast a ballot for Morsi. Morsi’s election will also throw in doubt the 33 year old cold peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.  The SCAF might seek to maintain the treaty via veto power over whatever Constitution emerges from a new Parliament.   President Obama has cozyed up to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa region as witnessed by attendance of key State Department  Muslim Ummah outreach officials and National Security advisors at a recent Saban Center for Middle East Policy US World Islam Forum in Qatar in late May.

Samer Lebdi of The Henry Jackson Society in the UK had this analysis of who voted for Morsi in Egypt, “Muslim Brotherhood Candidate  Wins Egyptian Presidency”:

The Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi claimed victory earlier today in Egypt's first presidential election following the toppling of Hosni Mubarak's regime last year.

The Islamist group was about to portray itself as a the victim of a military coup following the decision by the Supreme Court to dissolve the Islamist dominated Parliament on the grounds that the electoral law that led to the election of a number of Islamist MPs was unconstitutional. Additionally, Youssef al-Qaradawi, a radical Qatar-based cleric has called on Egyptians to vote for Morsi, suggesting that voting for Shafiq is a ''perjury''. Even al Qaeda leader, Aymann al-Zawahiri, issued a statement urging Egyptians to vote for Morsi.

It also appears that Morsi polled well amongst women. Indeed, female activists were an important component of the Brotherhood's strategy to get the vote out inside a conservative family-oriented society. Female activists were recruited to engage in door-to-door campaigning designed to target women. A similar approach that used by Hamas' in Gaza in 2005. Shafiq, on the other hand, managed to win major touristic governorates in Luxor and the Red Sea, suggesting the sector's fear from the Islamic agenda that could block significant flow of income for the country.

The significance of the election lies in the fact that Egyptians have voted for a president without a constitution or a parliament, following the Supreme Court decision last Thursday to disband the legislature elected last January. Under the new dispensation, the president will hold the executive authority without adequate or appropriate checks and balances in place.
 That said, the power of the Muslim Brotherhood may be somewhat checked by undisguised power grab by the "transitional government", headed by military generals  the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). SCAF has unilaterally awarded itself new powers, including veto power over the text of a new permanent constitution and the power to decide on all matters relating to its operations. The statement issued by SCAF suggests that it will work to safeguard Egypt's strategic relations with Israel and the US, and ensure that the peace treaty will remain in effect even if the Muslim Brotherhood controls both the legislative and the executive branches of government. In addition, SCAF has announced that no new parliamentary elections will take place until a permanent constitution has been approved. This decision has been greeted with anger and dismay on the Egyptian street with many claiming that this amounts to a military coup.  

Given this situation, domestic exhaustion and further tensions should be expected both within Egyptian civil society but also at a political institutional level. Indeed, following the SCAF statement questions remain over whether the armed forces will fall under the ultimate authority of the executive branch and/or whether they will actually obey presidential orders. Civil rights activists claim that SCAFs declaration rendered the scheduled handover of power to a democratically elected executive meaningless.

From a regional context, the events of the last week in Egypt could be read as a proxy war between two Gulf Arab powers: Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The former backs the Muslim Brotherhood through funding, clerical consultations and massive media coordination, while latter has backed SCAF and its favoured candidate Shafiq.

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Samer Libdeh
Senior Research Fellow

In 2003, Samer worked as a reporter in Baghdad for MSNBC and later as a Foreign Desk Editor for Alaswaq Business Daily in Jordan. He has been published in The Guardian, The Jerusalem Post, The Lebanese Daily Star, The Jordan Times and The Yale Political Journal and has made numerous appearances on BBC World, MSNBC and Al Hurra TV. Libdeh holds an MA in international politics and security studies from Bradford University, as well as a certificate in policy analysis from the State University of New York and a BA in psychology from the University of Jordan.