Egypt’s New President (Rebloggable by Request)

deadpresidents:

anonymous asked:  should we be worried that the new egyptian president is supported by the muslim brotherhood

Why?  Because it has the word “Muslim” in their title?

Egypt’s President-elect, Mohamed Morsi, spent quite a bit of his life in California.  He is a graduate of USC and CSU-Northridge.  Half of his kids are U.S. citizens who were born in California.  He’s, from what we are told, the democratically-elected President of Egypt.  If we’re going to call for the democratic process, we must respect the democratic process.

The Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda are two very different entities with very different purposes.  The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamist group, but not a violent one.  They call for peaceful, democratic elections in all Islamic countries, which is not what al-Qaeda fights for.

President Morsi will struggle to control the levers of state. He will likely face foot-dragging and perhaps outright attempts to undermine his initiatives from key institutions. Faced with such resistance, frustration may tempt him fall into the trap of attempting to throw his new weight around. This would be a mistake. His challenge is to lead a bitterly divided, fearful, and angry population toward a peaceful democratic outcome, without becoming a reviled scapegoat for continued military rule.
European Council on Foreign Relations Senior Policy Fellow Elijah Zarwan • Analyzing the challenges Mohamed Morsi will face in leading Egypt in the coming months and years. Morsi won the election on Sunday, with 52 percent of the vote. (via shortformblog)

(via shortformblog)

Egyptian military makes power grab as presidential election results disputed

shortformblog:

  • yeah … Last night, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi declared himself the winner of Egypt’s presidential election, based on the party’s own results. Former Egyptian PM Ahmed Shafiq is disputing the outcome (which was close), and official results will not come out until Thursday.
  • … but Late last night, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces granted itself authority over the parliament while a new one is elected, which effectively would keep military rulers in power. While protests have been light, the move has been strongly criticized in activist circles. source

» What the military can do: The military currently has a right, due to this resolution, to control the military without any civilian oversight, to introduce a new constitution, and to exercise full legislative authority — in other words, to pass laws at will. This is bad news, and some have called SCAF’s power grab tantamount to a coup. The group, however, says they’ll hand power over to the new president by the end of June, but will that promise hold?

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In Sunday's Egyptian presidential elections, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi has claimed victory over former PM Ahmed Shafiq, Morsi's campaign reports.

shortformblog:

Mohamed Morsi’s campaign claims victory, saying that the Muslim Brotherhood candidate has clinched 52.5 percent of the vote. In a press conference at their headquarters in Cairo, the campaign also announced that Shafiq got about 47 percent of the vote. Counting has been completed at slightly more than 97 percent of polling stations. After the announcement, a handful of Morsy supporters chanted, “The free revolutionaries will continue to victory!” and “Down with military rule!”

The vote has not been confirmed by outside sources, but is being widely reported at this time.