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| Women stand in line to cast their vote in Alexandria. Photo Credit Al Jazeera. |
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| An Egyptian woman looks at her ballot. Photo Credit, Al Jazeera. |
Should Egyptians accept the election results?
This is a tough question. It is puzzling that Shafiq outpolled Morsy. There is no question that the Muslim Brotherhood has the best ground game in town. However, for Shafiq to have beaten the Brotherhood, that means that the entire NDP apparatus, i.e. Mubarak's old party, is alive and well. It makes one wonder if there were not behind the scenes election violations that could not be viewed by observers? Allegations of vote buying have been made. Okay, shaking off my paranoia, here is an interesting analysis of why Shafiq did so well.
Apparently, the secularists and leftists and revolutionaries split their votes between Shabaahi and Fotouh. Of course, vote splitting was to be expected. That said, the top four candidates all polled close to 25%. Given how close the election was, it would have been reasonable to hold a four way runoff. The PEC is not winning any friends in this election. First, they allowed Shafiq to run, even though the parliament banned members of the Mubarak regime from running. There is no question that the PEC's main client was the SCAF. Second, the decisions of the PEC cannot be appealed.
Many Egyptians are not happy about the outcome. Tahrir was packed today. Issandr El Imrani asks why Egyptians should accept these elections. Former President Jimmy Carter says his monitors could not observe the whole election, because his mission only got access a week before the race. Overall, however, Carter stated that the results of the election were acceptable.
More worrying than who won, in my view, is the fact that no constitution is in place, and as former President Jimmy Carter pointed out, the Egyptians are electing a president whose powers have not yet been defined. Strange days indeed.
After major protests on Monday, Tahrir Square is calm again.
Runoffs for the presidential elections are slated for the 16th and 17th of June.
I totally agree on the point regarding the constitution which in my personal opinion should have come first before the presidential election. People got so distracted with the presidential election that they forgot about the constituent assembly and what happened last time. Dr. Ziad Bahaa El-Din (Member of the Parliament) in his page on Facebook has highly criticized the current process and accused the Islamist parties (the parliamentary majority) of trying again to dominate and control the writing of the constitution; he warned all Egyptians from the repercussions of such action and urged all parties to take a strong action in this regard. Full article could be found on: (https://www.facebook.com/pages/زياد-بهاء-الدين-في-برلمان-2012/329373417102861)
ReplyDeleteDear Salma, yes, who will write the constitution, and what the constitution will say are matters of extreme interest and concern to democratic scholars. Further, electing a president whose powers are not clearly defined is likely to lead to bad outcomes. Good point! Nice article!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, we were engaged into the Presidential elections without new constitution to govern the New Republic of Egypt and to define the responsibilities and powers of the new President. Moreover, after the announcement of the first phase results, it came out that we are forced to vote for one of two alternatives, each of them is unacceptable for some reasons.
ReplyDeleteNow, the Egyptians have to determine the least unsatisfactory choice.
Up till now, I, as the majority of the Egyptians, did not determine my attitude toward the candidates in the run-off. In fact, I do not want the Muslim Brotherhood to master all the power in the country, so as not to produce a new National Democratic Party with its full control and the abuse of its power. Likewise, I do not want to come with a new President whom his model is the former dictator President.
ReplyDeleteUp to make decision, I feel desperate.
I will start by commenting on the title of the Blog. Yes defintely Egyptians should accept the results of the 1st round. Since they agreed to vote and their voices were the main reason for such results then they should accept the consequences. This is "Democracy". Regarding the constitution point, I strongly agree, however "TOO LATE". We cannot go back. We have to keep our fingers crossed as we are about to witness the hardest period our beloved "Egypt" is going to go through.
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ReplyDeleteIt is wrong to do the constitution after the presidency elections because people are voting without knowing the boundaries of the president power. people should vote based on knowing if this person can handle this specific responsibility or not.
ReplyDeleteI agree, not defining the powers of the upcoming president shows some similarities to the past regime, in which transparency was an issue. Not only that, but a few days ago a talk show presented the idea of Shafiq not having a clear presidential program/plan, which contributes to the previously stated comment. Nevertheless, also discussed was the fact that if Morsy wins, he will have to answer to yet another leader, which worries the Egyptian public very much.
ReplyDeleteThere is one idea that i personally think is valid, which is no matter who wins in the elections, the people should not worry that another Mubarak is going to rule Egypt. Every leader, politician and official has seen what happened to Mubarak and his "minions" and would have to think a thousand times before making the same mistake.
ReplyDeleteI think that electing the new president without a specific constitution will give the new president the chance to establish the new constitution in the favor of his regime. Unfortunately, the Egyptians have voted for the referendum of the amendment of the constitution and agreed on something they don't know how it means. However, I'm cautiously optimistic about the future of Egypt; I'm sure that the former oppressive regime will not come back again and we will live a new democratic age, but after facing some obstacles which is normal after the revolution as well as the absence of security.
ReplyDeleteTo my mind, the main issue is not to choose the president but to write the new constitution as many of the Egyptian experts like El Baradei suggested before.It is very illogical, How the candidates accepted a position without knowing what would be their responsibility. It was a stupidity from them to accept that from the very beginning; in addition both Abou ElFtouh and Sabahe behaved so selfish when they refused to be united in the election. Moreover, there was a fraud in the election and I saw it with my own eyes which confirms that this election should not be under the supervision of SCAF. Unfortunately, it is too late to talk about that know as the Egyptians now in the worst choice in their modern history I hop they boycotting the election to let the world know that this is not their choice.
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