* Mursi, Shafiq go through to presidential run-off
* Defeated moderate Islamist candidate decries outcome
* Turnout 46 percent, election complaints rejected
* Protesters hit streets in Alexandria
(Adds protest, Salafi party backing Mursi)
By Shaimaa Fayed and Dina Zayed
CAIRO, May 28 (Reuters) – Egypt headed for a divisive duel
between a Muslim Brother and an ex-military man in a run-off for
a president to replace ousted leader Hosni Mubarak, after
election results on Monday that one losing candidate called
“dishonest”.
The electoral committee confirmed that the Muslim
Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi and former air force chief and
Mubarak ally Ahmed Shafiq had won through to the second round of
Egypt’s first genuinely contested presidential election.
Mursi topped the poll with 24.3 percent of the vote,
followed by Shafiq with 23.3 percent. Turnout was 46 percent.
A Mursi-Shafiq run-off poses an agonising dilemma for many
of Egypt’s 50 million voters who are equally wary of Islamist
rule or a return to a military-backed authoritarian system.
About 200 protesters demonstrated in Alexandria, Egypt’s
second city after the results emerged, chanting: “No to Shafiq
and to the Brotherhood. The revolution is still in the square.”
About half of first-round votes went to candidates somewhere
in the middle ground – from leftist firebrand Hamdeen Sabahy,
third-placed with 20.4 percent, to moderate Islamist Abdel
Moneim Abol Fotouh, with 17.2 percent, and former Arab League
secretary-general Amr Moussa, with 10.9 percent.
All three filed complaints about the voting, all of which
were rejected by the six judges forming the electoral committee.
The disputes add rancour to an already messy and often
bloody transition to democracy since generals took over from
Mubarak when a popular uprising forced him out on Feb. 11, 2011.
“I reject these results and do not recognise them,” said
Abol Fotouh, a former Brotherhood member, alleging that votes
had been bought and representatives of candidates had been
denied access to polling stations during the count.
“The national conscience does not allow for labelling these
elections honest,” said Abol Fotouh, the only one of the 12
first-round contenders to reject the result outright.
Moussa said earlier that “question marks” hung over the
vote. “There were violations, but this should not change our
minds on democracy and the necessity of choosing our president.”
“ROLE MODEL”
The Muslim Brotherhood sought to muster a coalition to help
Mursi against Shafiq, who calls Mubarak his “role model”.
Neither man came close to winning the more than 50 percent
of the vote needed to clinch the presidency in the first round.
The close contest has set both contenders scrambling for
support, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, which is trying to
draw losing candidates and other political forces into a broad
front to prevent a “counter-revolutionary” Shafiq victory.
The ultra-orthodox Salafi Islamist party Al-Nour has said it
will now back Mursi, after siding with Abol Fotouh in the first
round. The party has the second biggest bloc in parliament after
the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).
Shafiq is also seeking wider backing, even posing as a
protector of the revolt that toppled Mubarak.
Shafiq’s supporters see him as the man to impose security
and crack down on protests viewed as damaging to the economy.
Mursi appeals to Egyptians keen for Islamists to run a
deeply religious country within a democratic framework.
“I would bet that at some stage in the next two weeks there
will be an upsurge in violence,” said a Western diplomat, who
predicted that such a flare-up would probably boost the chances
of Shafiq, given his promises to enforce law and order.
The military council has promised to lift a hated state of
emergency in force throughout Mubarak’s 30-year rule on May 31.
It has also pledged to hand over to the new president by July 1.
A Brotherhood source, who asked not to be named, said the
Islamist group’s FJP had prepared a menu of options to tempt
rival groups and politicians to its side.
These include creating a five-member advisory council to
advise the president; assigning the posts of prime minister or
vice-president to Abol Fotouh and Sabahy; distributing cabinet
posts to other parties and offering compromises on planned laws
and on an assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution.
BROTHERHOOD CONTACTS
So far Abol Fotouh and Sabahy have appeared wary of such
overtures, staying away from meetings called by the Brotherhood
to discuss strategy for the second round of an election supposed
to crown Egypt’s turbulent army-led transition to democracy.
Moussa, a former foreign minister once seen as favourite to
win the presidency, but who appears to have managed only fifth
place, said he would stay in politics but was seeking no post.
“We cannot accept a re-creation of the (Mubarak) regime,” he
declared, but said he had not yet spoken with the Brotherhood on
any anti-Shafiq coalition. “I am not going to consult them, but
if they want to consult me, I will consider it.”
Uncertainty over the election has hit Egyptian share prices.
The main index dropped another 1.3 percent on Monday after
suffering a 3.5 percent drop on Sunday, its worst in nine weeks.
“Investors are afraid because now we have two extreme
candidates facing one another. No one will invest heavily in
Egypt … until it becomes clear who is president,” said Amr
Chamel, a trader at Pharos Securities.
“If Shafiq wins, foreign investors will feel at ease but
there may be street protests against him. A Mursi presidency
would scare off foreign investment.”
International ratings agency Fitch said the Mursi-Shafiq
contest could “exacerbate social unrest and prolong political
stalemate”, but said in the longer term both favoured policies
that could stabilise Egypt’s sovereign credit profile.
(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad, Tamim Elyan, Tom Perry,
Edmund Blair and Patrick Werr; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing
by Edmund Blair)
