Egypt faces division in electoral run-off

[Trinnity]

Egypt faces division in electoral run-off

A committed Islamist and a former military man will compete for the Egyptian presidency next month, in a historic election pitting the country’s two main camps against each other.
Mohamed Morsi, an engineer and stalwart of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force pilot and cabinet minister under Hosni Mubarak, the deposed president, took the top two positions in the first round of Egypt’s presidential elections, according to preliminary results released on Friday.


The Muslim Brotherhood characterised the vote as a choice between “a new leadership that promises a complete change to the old corrupt ways and a bright future for Egypt, and a member of the old guard harking to the Mubarak era”.

Freedom to choose between the military and the MB.

Good grief. Sharia or military....
I don't think the ME understands democracy. How could they? They've never experienced it. Freedom is not choosing Sharia Law. Just my two cents~

Thoughts?

[URF8]

I think Egypt is entering a period of darkness that will last for a very long time.

[Trinnity]

I wonder if people there worry all the time.

[Conley]

Freedom to choose between the military and the MB.

Good grief. Sharia or military....
I don't think the ME understands democracy. How could they? They've never experienced it. Freedom is not choosing Sharia Law. Just my two cents~

Thoughts?

Egypt isn't a big oil producer but I think the entire region only has about a hundred years at max to make something of itself before oil is a part of mankind's history. If they haven't taken advantage of it by now is there any hope for the future?

[Trinnity]

Point taken.

[Sultan]

This is a very difficult thing to answer in one post but no Egyptians are not worried all the time as you think.

Of all the ME if you visited you would find Egypt the most funny and good natured. Egyptians should not always be linked to Arabs as we are different in many ways. We are only an Arab republic but not Arabs as such. We go from Nubians to Mediterraneans to Maghrib (Spanish influence) but also Egyptian. We are famous for hospitality and peaceful nature and funny. If you knew the region then you know us.

The elections were clearly rigged. The SPEC and General Prosecutor has the evidence now of rigging. Just one example is 900,000 flase ids given to police so they could vote in elections for Shafik. Police and army are not allowed to vote so an officer has handed the evidence of the police making copies of police id without police logo so they could vote. That gave Shafik alomst one million illegal votes. There was also evidence given to prosecutor about ex pat vote rigging where they voted twice.

The people do not want Shafik felool to be part of the election. The revolution was to rid ourselves of the regime not re install it.

The curious thing is Shafik got huge support from Christians which means they support old regime. That makes you wonder if they were the thugs who fought the revolutionaries?? If they were the ones paid by the camel men in the camel battle??, if they were the ones who attacked Tahrir with molotovs??

Mubarak was famous for instigating sectarian attacks when his popularity was in jeopardy or elections were due. The question now is how involved were the Coptics in this aqs they clearly see the old regime as the one they want to return.

There are very difficult time ahead for Egypt because we cannot fix 5000 years of dictatorship in 15 months. We cannot throw off a US puppet regime without a fight and they will not lie down and die easily.

Egyptians for the first time in their lives tasted what is is like to be free to choose. If you never witnessed this then you cannot compare, you dont know the feeling how it feels to end brutality and oppression not just from the ruler but from the rulers allies.

I have never been a supporter of MB. Not for any specific reason its just that Egyptians never experienced voting or politics or discussions in public. We were ruled by an iron fist and brutality. We are new to this involvement in politics and making choices because we never had that before and of course we will make mistakes but we are united in that we do not want felool return. We never want to go back to that again.

The MB have suffered decades of oppression and torture under Mubarak etc. They were the ones who fed poor Egyptians when Mubarak was investing in Swiss bank accounts. The MB are doctors and lawyers and they gave free treatment and free defence in courts to the poor. They opened free clinics and schools and they were the ones to feed the poor families in the villages when Mubarak ignored them.

People should realise that the MB aare not what the West or Mubarak wants thjem to believe. I am not a supporter of them but I do know the good they do and the oppression they suffered and I cannot deny that. They won because the people remembered what they done for them. They voted because they are alive because the MB paid for their operations and medicines and cancer treatments etc etc etc because Mubarak did not.

We are in a situation now of the ex regime now wanting to give up it's throne and its massive real estate and businesses they acquired here illegally.

If you want to really know the main problem in the region then look at Saudi. That is where the radicals and fundamentalist come from. The 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. Wahabi ideology is taught in Saudi mosques and is spread through people like Bin Laden to Pakistan and Afghanistan and beyond. Fanatical Wahabism from Saudi is the major problem BUT the problem is the US and Israel are huge supporters of Saudi and their Wahabi doctrine. The question you have to ask yourself is why is that?

[MMC]

This is a very difficult thing to answer in one post but no Egyptians are not worried all the time as you think.

Of all the ME if you visited you would find Egypt the most funny and good natured. Egyptians should not always be linked to Arabs as we are different in many ways. We are only an Arab republic but not Arabs as such. We go from Nubians to Mediterraneans to Maghrib (Spanish influence) but also Egyptian. We are famous for hospitality and peaceful nature and funny. If you knew the region then you know us.

The elections were clearly rigged. The SPEC and General Prosecutor has the evidence now of rigging. Just one example is 900,000 flase ids given to police so they could vote in elections for Shafik. Police and army are not allowed to vote so an officer has handed the evidence of the police making copies of police id without police logo so they could vote. That gave Shafik alomst one million illegal votes. There was also evidence given to prosecutor about ex pat vote rigging where they voted twice.

The people do not want Shafik felool to be part of the election. The revolution was to rid ourselves of the regime not re install it.

The curious thing is Shafik got huge support from Christians which means they support old regime. That makes you wonder if they were the thugs who fought the revolutionaries?? If they were the ones paid by the camel men in the camel battle??, if they were the ones who attacked Tahrir with molotovs??

Mubarak was famous for instigating sectarian attacks when his popularity was in jeopardy or elections were due. The question now is how involved were the Coptics in this aqs they clearly see the old regime as the one they want to return.

There are very difficult time ahead for Egypt because we cannot fix 5000 years of dictatorship in 15 months. We cannot throw off a US puppet regime without a fight and they will not lie down and die easily.

Egyptians for the first time in their lives tasted what is is like to be free to choose. If you never witnessed this then you cannot compare, you dont know the feeling how it feels to end brutality and oppression not just from the ruler but from the rulers allies.

I have never been a supporter of MB. Not for any specific reason its just that Egyptians never experienced voting or politics or discussions in public. We were ruled by an iron fist and brutality. We are new to this involvement in politics and making choices because we never had that before and of course we will make mistakes but we are united in that we do not want felool return. We never want to go back to that again.

The MB have suffered decades of oppression and torture under Mubarak etc. They were the ones who fed poor Egyptians when Mubarak was investing in Swiss bank accounts. The MB are doctors and lawyers and they gave free treatment and free defence in courts to the poor. They opened free clinics and schools and they were the ones to feed the poor families in the villages when Mubarak ignored them.

People should realise that the MB aare not what the West or Mubarak wants thjem to believe. I am not a supporter of them but I do know the good they do and the oppression they suffered and I cannot deny that. They won because the people remembered what they done for them. They voted because they are alive because the MB paid for their operations and medicines and cancer treatments etc etc etc because Mubarak did not.

We are in a situation now of the ex regime now wanting to give up it's throne and its massive real estate and businesses they acquired here illegally.

If you want to really know the main problem in the region then look at Saudi. That is where the radicals and fundamentalist come from. The 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. Wahabi ideology is taught in Saudi mosques and is spread through people like Bin Laden to Pakistan and Afghanistan and beyond. Fanatical Wahabism from Saudi is the major problem BUT the problem is the US and Israel are huge supporters of Saudi and their Wahabi doctrine. The question you have to ask yourself is why is that?

Perhaps the Egyptians should learn about Democracy first.....try studying it, before attempting to create a new form of it. Trying to blame a US puppet for Egypts backwards ways.....doesn't make up for their lack of understanding in a civilized World.

So what the MB provides Charity. If they did not no one would give a damn as to anything they have to say. Can't have followers if one has nothing to give.

[Trinnity]

What about Sharia law, Sultan? As I understand it the MB is for Sharia.
But Sharia is harsh and cruel to women. Shouldn't women be equals?

It's hard for us to understand or approve of a society that treats women as less than men.

Oh, one more thing....about worrying all the time: I was talking about the Israeli's. I just posted that on the wrong thread somehow.
I would think that the citizens of Israel must worry all the time about attack as they are surrounded by enemies on all sides.

[RollingWave]

Egypt isn't a big oil producer but I think the entire region only has about a hundred years at max to make something of itself before oil is a part of mankind's history. If they haven't taken advantage of it by now is there any hope for the future?

Egypt is better off than most middle east country in this regard anyway, they still have the Nile, and unless someone invents teleportation in the near future the Suez cannal's relevenace will remain high oil or not. Egypt was one of the most prosperous region in the Pan Med world through most of history anyway. there's no real reason to believe that running out of oil will sink them. figuring out a stable and reasonablly effective government though is another matter.

FWIW, Tunisia also voted in an islamist bent new government, it's doing quiet well actually. much better than Greece at least (though that's no exactly a high bar but there is some irony in that Islamist democracy > birthplace of democracy) from a realistic POV I highly highly doubt Egypt's law will even approach Saudi level (which IS much closer to Sharia law) let alone really going for the most ridiculasly strict interpetation of Sharia law. How it avoids going through as much pain as Turkey in actually getting the military out of politics is really a far more realistic question then dreading the people actually choosing what most of them believe in. despite the protest a year+ ago being largely headed by libral middle class and students, those folks make up maybe some 30% of the population at best, it's hardly a suprirse that their getting crushed in the elections.

To be honest the western medias and population as a whole probably have an overly irrational fear of the so called "islamist / sharia" part of democracy in the ME, I could point out the obvious example of Turkey, where in recent decade they've voted in a considerablly more religiously conservative (aka islamist) party and the result is that they've out performed all the EU countries in relative terms except maybe Germany, and they even manage to at least so far contain the ever present military coup threat. And the obvious irony that in relative to domestic population terms Saudi Arabia, the most Sharia state of them all, have a huge foreign non-muslim population working and living there.

[moon]

It's hard for us to understand or approve of a society that treats women as less than men.

*

Accepting this in the spirit in which it was intended,* such societies exist and have flourished for thousands of years. * What do sociologists and anthropologists make of it ? * *The perceived subjugation of women isn't confined to Islam, of course. *It has been the norm, almost universally, until very recently. *I could be wrong but I believe that even ' the mother of parliaments ' didn't give a democratic vote to women until early in the 20th century. *What is our basis for criticizing , in this instance, Egyptian culture ? * Would Egyptian women vote for the Mos. Bros if they thought that they would become subjugated ? * I rather think not. *So what do we know about the Mos. Bros really ? * If we are to believe the anti-Islamic propaganda that is shoveled over us daily by our media- *much of which has shabby intent- *and see muslim women as chattels then what about their view of Western women as mere sex objects, depicted relentlessly as open-crotched advertising material to be placed in glass cages and leered at by alcohol-soaked males with as much spirituality about them as a luminous dildo ? * The whole idea of the democratic process is to give the demos a say in their own governance. *I have no doubt at all that Egyptians would be mortified if Americans- *with a choice of just two sub-standard candidates- *should elect Mitt the Mormon. *Yet that is America's choice. *If Egyptians prefer a period of self-collection and reflection over the enforced brashness and humiliation of the Mubarak years then that should be welcomed. *Western women should take a look at themselves and how they are trafficked and exploited in their own society before they attempt to create sets of values for women elsewhere.*

Rolling Wave makes some good points.*