Egypt poll result to be announced on Sunday
Egyptians will have to wait until Sunday afternoon to learn who their new president is, as protesters say they fear the military is attempting to fix the result.
The long-awaited result of the run-off between Islamist leader Mohammed Mursi and former air force commander Ahmed Shafik will be announced at 3pm local time (1pm Greenwich Mean Time), said election commission secretary-general Hatem Bagato.
The result was supposed to be announced on Thursday but officials said they needed more time to investigate complaints by the candidates about irregularities.
An independent group of judges have supported Mr Mursi’s claim to a narrow victory, based on the reports from individual polling stations.
But Mr Mursi’s supporters and other pro-revolution groups say they are fearful that the ruling Military Council will try to install Mr Shafiq regardless of the actual results.
Activists have returned to Tahrir Square in the capital Cairo, where crowds gathered to demand the end of the rule of dictator Hosni Mubarak last year.
In the square, protester Mahmoud Mohamed Fouda said: “The reason for the delay in announcing the results of the elections is political.
“The Military Council wants to retain a presence in the governing authority. They don’t want to give up power. They don’t want to go back to their bases and to just go and protect the borders. They don’t want to serve the nation, to serve Egypt. They don’t want to be subordinate to the president that the people have elected.”
They want to distract the people and then bring out the candidate that they want so they can retain their positions. Tahrir Square protester
Sabry Abdul Hakem said the military intends to fix the results of the elections in favour of former Air Force General Shafiq , who served as Aviation Minister and briefly Prime Minister under Mubarak.
He said: “They want to distract the people and then bring out the candidate that they want so they can retain their positions. But God willing those who got rid of Hosni Mubarak will get rid of them too.”
Not all the protesters are supporters of Mr Mursi. Many have been angered by the dissolution of an Islamist-led parliament and the ruling Military Council’s announcement of tight limits on the new head of state’s powers.
The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces said in a statement on Friday that it would not give in to the protesters’ demands by reversing the dissolution of parliament and cancelling a decree granting the council legislative power until a new constitution is in place.
Protester Ali Madany said: “It’s nothing new for them to lie. They have raised the Egyptian people on lies. They have taught us lies, and turned everything in Egypt into a lie.
“These people have not come here for Mursi. We knew that Mr Mursi had won last Sunday night, because the judges gave us the results right away. But these people have come to Tahrir because of the constitutional addendum and the attempt to put something even worse than the emergency law in place.”
In a country where virtually no one can remember an election before last year that was not rigged, faith in the electoral process is low, not least among Brotherhood officials, many of whom, like Mr Mursi, were jailed under Mubarak for their political activities.
The same electoral commission that handed 90 percent of a November 2010 parliamentary vote to Mubarak supporters, sparking the protests that brought the dictator down a few weeks later, sits in judgement on the new presidency.