Egypte: les résultats de l’élection présidentielle–Mohamed Mursi vs. Ahmed Shafiq

The MB candidate in the pole position to win the run-off

From all the news sources that i consulted today, the results of the first round of the Egyptian presidential elections won’t be released until Monday. The race, as the electoral commission has stated in its last press release, is too close to call.

However, early indicators derived from television network exit poll data show that Mohamed Mursi, the MB candidate, is in the lead. When Mursi entered the race, quite late, the Egyptian newspapers and television mucked him and dubbed him the Muslim Brotherhood’s “uncharismatic” candidate. Some other newspaper called him the “spare tire” candidate because the MB’s first choice candidate was disqualified by the electoral commission.

Ahmed Shafiq vs. Mohamed Mursi

However, the 60-year-old engineer conducted a very energetic campaign despite his soft-spoken voice and stands on most controversial issues. Mursi, according to the partial projections, came first in this opening round. These partial projections are also backed up by the MB tally, which showed off a remarkable and unequaled level of organization during this campaign.

Ahmed Shafiq, a former Hosni Mubarak’s prime minister, came in second position, which sets the run-off round to be of high quality between two well-qualified candidates. Moreover, the run-off (scheduled to be held on June 16 and 17) gives Egyptians a stark choice between a military man representing the past in many ways (Ahmed Shafiq was Mubarak’s last prime minister) and an Islamist whose conservative message appeals to some and frightens others (and not only in Egypt).

According to Muslim Brotherhood sources with votes counted from about 12,800 of the roughly 13,100 polling precincts, Mursi has garnered 25%, Shafiq 23%, a rival Islamist Abdel-Moneim Aboul Fotouh 20%, and the leftist Hamdeen Sabahy 19%.

These early projections if confirmed give a strong electoral base and reservoir of voters to Mursi. There is no doubt that most of the About Fotouh’s voters will easily vote for Mursi in the run-off. However, Safiq will probably play the nationalist card and will call upon Egyptian’s high and keen sense of “the nation”. Safiq has already started casting and framing Mursi as a dangerous candidate for Egypt who will probably isolate the country with his stances and policies and will hurt Egypt with his amateurism and inexperience.  But i doubt that this electoral strategy will work. Egyptians clearly want change, and want a clean break from the past. That’s what they have been expressing for the last year or so.

Having said that, Mursi, in the recent weeks, has given plenty of material to Shafiq to work with and use it to attack him as a novice politician. Mursi has called for a review of Cairo’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, saying Egypt’s neighbor has not respected the agreement–a stance that mirrors the position of most of the other candidates in the race. Talking before a large crowd this Sunday, Muris declared “We will take a serious step towards a better future, God willing…If they [meaning the military and the pro-Mubarak regime crowd] take a step to take us backwards, to forge the will of the people and fiddle with security, we know who they are…we will throw them in the rubbish bin of history.”

Mursi is also one of the rare candidate who has an actual campaign program, which he promoted throughout Egypt these last two months. It is called “The Renaissance Project”, an 80-page manifesto based on what Mursi calls a  “centrist understanding” of Islam.”The Renaissance Project” outlines Mursi’s and the MB’s vision on everything from fighting inflation to unemployment to forging ties with the U.S. on a more equal footing. It also envisions deeper diplomatic and economic ties with Turkey. In Mursi’s vision and speeches, an Egyptian-Turkish alliance is a goal that must be achieved. It is also the only alliance that would create a counter-power, and a strong check on the behavior of Israel, the U.S. and Iran in the region.

Calling the “The Renaissance Project” a centrist understanding of Islam is a clever way for Mursi to distance himself and his political stances from the extremist Salafists ones. In sum, this manifesto has been quite successful. Mursi turned out to be an excellent campaigner despite a very shaky start, a very shaky debate performance, and a very stern and austere speech delivery.  However, the non-Islamists, not least Christians who make up about a 10% of the population, are still unconvinced by his promises that freedoms, civil liberties, as well as religious freedoms will be safe under his leadership.

“It was for the sake of the Islamic sharia that men were … thrown into prison. Their blood and existence rests on our shoulders now…we will work together to realize their dream of implementing sharia.” Campaign speeches like this one do very little to alleviate the fears and concerns of the non-Islamists and non-Muslim minority in Egypt. He has clearly some work to do and he cannot force his agenda through once he is elected.

And now, i leave you to read a very good analysis of our friend Juan Cole. As always Juan hits the nail on the head.

Egypt’s Presidential Election: Between Revolution and Counter-Revolution

Posted on 05/25/2012 by Juan

The results of the Egyptian presidential election, held on Wednesday and Thursday, won’t be announced until Monday, say official sources in the government. In contrast, the High Electoral Commission is indicating that it will announce the results as soon as they are definitively known. Egypt is on a precipice between a relatively smooth transition and a lot of social turmoil, depending on who the front runners are.

But news is coming in as the ballots are being counted, and as I write on Friday, the race is too close to call. For profiles of the candidates, see my report earlier this week

Egyptian Voters at Polling Station (Muqattam), May 24, 2012

Abdel Moneim Abou’l-Futouh, the “Muslim liberal” candidate who had broken with the Muslim Brotherhood, can be counted out. He has conceded, and has thrown his support to the Muslim Brotherhood leader, Muhammad Mursi. He had been favored to win the election only two or three weeks ago, but his attempt to make everyone from liberals to hard line Salafi fundamentalists happy badly damaged him, since it raised the question as to what his real agenda was. I suspect that the support he garnered from some Salafi leaders, who urged their followers to vote for him instead of for Mursi, also scared away a lot of the leftists and liberals who had considered voting for him.

Abou’l-Futouh also had the effect of splitting the Muslim fundamentalist vote, depriving Mursi of a clear victory and damaging the Brotherhood’s image as a party machine juggernaut.

Early returns also suggest that another possible front-runner, Amr Moussa (former foreign minister and former head of the Arab League), has also faded and looks unlikely to be in the run-off. His constituency deserted him in favor of Ahmad Shafiq.

As I write it is mid-afternoon on Friday, and there is a reported surge for the leftist candidate, Hamdeen Sabahi. He is now said to be in second place, ahead of former Aviation Minister and Air Force General Ahmad Shafiq. Sabahi won big in Alexandria, which had been trending fundamentalist, but which is a modern Mediterranean port city with a big, organized working class, who appear to have swung to him (perhaps along with a lot of government workers and the secular middle class, along with committed revolutionaries). Al-Nil television’s correspondent is reporting as I speak that Sabahi also took Port Said, a smaller port city.

If Sabahi can maintain his narrow lead over Ahmad Shafiq, the resulting run-off will give Egyptians a choice between a leftist secularist and a Muslim fundamentalist, both of them from the opposition to Mubarak.

If Shafiq can pull back ahead of Sabahi, the resulting election would be a huge catastrophe for Egypt.

If Egyptians have to decide between Mursi and Shafiq, they’ll have a stark choice. They could give the Muslim Brotherhood two of the major branches of civilian government and risk a swift move to Islamic law and one-party dominance. They could split the ticket and support the secular Shafiq, who is very much a creature of the old regime and of the Egyptian military. In some ways he would resurrect Mubarak’s policies but will face new limitations in presidential rule by fiat. He speaks warmly of Mubarak, and would be a highly polarizing figure who would certainly provoke a whole new round of big demonstrations on the part of the New Left youth and perhaps also Muslim fundamentalists. He has ominously promised to crack down hard on “destructive demonstrations.” Although the Western politicians and business classes might favor Shafiq for surface reasons, in fact they’d be buying a whole lot of trouble if they backed him.

A Mursi-Shafiq contest would certainly result in riots and fistfights all over the country, and if Shafiq won it would likely throw the country into substantial instability (an ironic outcome since the people voting for Shafiq in the big cities and the countryside are looking for a law and order candidate who can fight a slight rise in crime). It seems to me that the resulting demonstrations and unrest would risk further damaging Egypt’s economy.

A Mursi-Sabahi contest, in contrast, will be much smoother, though still contentious. Sabahi is probably acceptable to most of the New Left revolutionaries, though they were ambivalent about him because of his Nasserist commitments (raising questions about his dedication to parliamentary democracy). Still, he was a steadfast foe of Mubarak, and was involved in the key Kifaya! (enough) movement of 2004 and after, which laid the foundations for the revolution. As a critic of imperialism and of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, he might have some support from some of the Muslim fundamentalists who focus on that issue. And his insistence on social justice obviously has wide appeal across ideological groups.

Egyptian voters in a Mursi-Sabahi match-up would have a real choice between a pluralistic system and a return to virtually one-party rule. They’d have a choice between Muslim Brotherhood emphasis on private property/Turkish-style Neoliberalism and a more socialist policy (a la Hollande in France, perhaps). And in any case, both candidates would have a claim on opposition to the old Mubarak regime, and so an extreme polarization and “a further revolution”, as promised by the New Left, could be avoided.

The final results will therefore be highly consequential for Egypt, and for US and Israeli foreign policy. Those rushing to declare the two run-off winners today, though, are probably jumping the gun, given the very small spread among the front-runners after Mursi.

France: Le Débat: Jeu, Set, Match Hollande

It is hard to really determine a winner in a presidential debate. Both candidates are usually well-prepared, having digested long lists of facts and numbers, and ready to rumble and get it over with. Even in the American tradition of 3 presidential debates, it is hard to clearly say that one candidate has clearly won, while the other has clearly lost. Well, this was not the case tonight. In tonight’s French presidential debate, there was a clear winner and there was a clear loser. Hollande won, and Sarkozy lost.

Hollande dominated the debate from the beginning till the end. For almost 3 hours, the challenger showed his keen mastery of every fact related to any topic debated. In one word, it was a rare display of superiority. Sarkozy looked lost, angry, belligerent, disrespectful, not in control of his own files and facts. Sarkozy was outclassed and out-punched. Briefly stated, Sarkozy was in over his head.

We have to remember, Sarkozy was the candidate who demanded to have 3 debates. He was the candidate who said that he was “going to explode [Hollande].” Of course, Sarkozy, the bomb-maker, got exploded tonight. It is useless to go over every minute of the 3 hour long debate, but there was a passage, just before the end, where Hollande literally put the cherry on top of the cake. It was the apotheosis of the debate, the climatic moment, a moment that would certainly enter the history of presidential debates. Talking about his vision of the presidency and what he will do differently, Hollande, in a very eloquent way–almost poetic–summed up all of Sarkozy’s failures and emphasized clearly and calmly what he would do differently.  Watch, this was a beautiful moment.

France: Francois Hollande Gagne le Premier Tour des Elections Presidentielles

Breaking News:

19h25–Francois Hollande Gagne le Premier Tour des Elections Presidentielles

It is 17:00 & we just got partial results of the first round

of the French Presidential.

20h00-OFFICIAL (TF1, FRANCE 2 &  CSA): FRANCOIS HOLLANDE WINS THE FIRST ROUND WITH 29.9%,

NICOLAS SARKOZY 25.90%

MARINE LE PEN 20%

JEAN LUC MELENCHON 11.60%

FRANCOIS BAYROU 9.8%

EVA JOLY 2.30%

POUTOU 1:30%

Update 19: 20h20–Jean-Luc Mélenchon appelle à voter le 6 mai “je vous appelle à vous retrouver le 6 mai sans rien demander en échange pour battre de Sarkozy. Sans traîner les pieds, comme s’il s’agissait de me faire gagner l’élection présidentielle.”

Update 19: 20h10–Eva Joly appelle a voter Francois Hollande.

Update 18: Because of all the tendencies and estimations have been moving towards one distinct results, i am making it official and announcing that FRANCOIS HOLLANDE is the winner of the first around of the French presidential elections followed in second position by NICOLAS SARKOZY.

Update 17: Marine Le Pen à 20% selon plusieurs estimations–La candidate du Front National, Marine Le Pen obtiendrait de 17 à 20,7% et devancerait Jean-Luc Mélenchon (Front de Gauche) qui réaliserait entre 10,5% et 13%, selon des estimations des instituts CSA, Ipsos et Harris.

Update 16: 19h00, Selon la RTBF, Estimations avec fourchettes: Hollande 27-29 / Sarkozy 25-26 / Le Pen 18-20 / Mélenchon 11-12 / Bayrou 10

Update 15: Une heure avant la publication des resultats, Aurelie Filippetti (PS) evoque un “tres bon score de premier tour”

Update 14: Radio Télévision Belge Francophone (La RTBF) announce que François Hollande (28%) et Nicolas Sarkozy (25%) au second tour

Update 13: Selon les premières projections (moyenne de 3 instituts de sondages français), François Hollande arrive premier (27 à 29%), suivi de Nicolas Sarkozy (25 à 26%) 

Update 12: 18h41, La dernière estimation de l’abstention finale, selon Ipsos-France, est de 19,7%.

Update 11: 18:25 François Hollande en tête selon toutes les premières projections

18h07: François Hollande se trouve dans le bureau du Conseil Général de Corrèze, dont il est par ailleurs président. Il donnera un discours d’une dizaine de minutes vers 20h30, selon  BFM TV, avant de s’envoler pour Paris.

Update 10: 18:10 François Hollande en tête selon toutes les premières projections

Hollande: 27-28%

Sarkozy: 25-26%

Le Pen: 16%

Melenchon: 13-14%

Bayrou: 10%

Update 9: 18h05: Au quartier général parisien de François Bayrou, les militants commencent à arriver, indique France Télévisions. D’après l’équipe du candidat, 500 supporters du candidat du MoDem sont attendus à partir de 18h30.

Update 8: 18h02: À Stalingrad (Paris), près de 600 accréditations médias ont été délivrées pour la soirée de Jean-Luc Mélenchon, indique sur Twitter la journaliste Raphaëlle Besse-Desmoulières. Le candidat du Front de Gauche y est attendu pour 19h30.

Update 7: 18h01: Certains bureaux de vote sont en train de fermer. D’autres fermeront à 19h00 et 20h00.

Update 6: 18:00. François Hollande en tête selon toutes les premières projections

Hollande: 27-28%

Sarkozy: 25-26%

Le Pen: 16%

Melenchon: 13-14%

Bayrou: 10-10.5%

Update 5:  Selon un tweet d’Eric Nunès, on commence déjà à faire la queue pour entendre Nicolas Sarkozy à la Mutualité.

Update 4:  Francois Hollande serait toujours en tête a 17h33. Voici les premières projections moyennant les 3 instituts de sondages français qui s’occupent de faire l’estimation final du premier tour

Hollande: 27-28%

Sarkozy: 25-26%

Le Pen: 16-17%

Melenchon: 14-16%

Bayrou: 10-10.5%

Update 3: at 17:20  François Hollande serait en tête

Hollande: 28%

Sarkozy: 26%

Le Pen: 16%

Melenchon: 13%

Bayrou: 10%

Update 2: François Hollande en tête dans les départements et territoires d’outre-Mer

Saint-Pierre et Miquelon: François Hollande finit en tête avec 33,75% (contre 26,64% à Ségolène Royal en 2007), Nicolas Sarkozy le suit avec 18,75% (contre 24,55% en 2007).

Guadeloupe: François Hollande en tête avec 57% (contre 38% pour la candidate PS en 2007) loin devant Nicolas Sarkozy et ses 23,40% (alors qu’il réalisait 42,63% en 2007).

Update 1: at 17:00 French Time.  Caution, these are still partial results and could still change

Hollande: 28%

Sarkozy: 26%

Le Pen: 16%

Melenchon: 13%

Turnout: Le Taux de participation moins élevé qu’en 2007 à 17h

A 17h ce dimanche, le taux de participation atteignait 70,59% pour le premier tour de l’élection présidentielle contre 73,87% à 17h00 lors du premier tour de 2007

France: Nous publierons les résultats du premier tour à 18:30 heure françaises et 12:30 heure Americaine EST.

Nous avons décidé de publier les résultats du premier tour des élections présidentielles françaises le 22 Avril à 18:30 heure françaises et 12:30 heure Americaine.

Dès que les résultats (ou résultats partiels) sont disponibles, nous les publierons et les posterons sur ce blog.

Alors restez à l’écoute et venez sur le blog le 22 Avril autour de 18h30 pour avoir les résultats du premier tour avant tout le monde.

We have decided to publish the results of the first round of the French presidential elections at 18:30 or as soon as we have them.  We are not bound by the French law banning the publication of partial results before 20:00, and therefore there is no justification for us to hold on to the results until 20:00 (or 14:00 EST).

So as soon as we have partial results (and we expect to have them at 18:30 French time and 12:30 EST), we will post them right the way on this blog.

So, stay tuned and check our blog on April 22 18:30 (if you live in France) and 12:30 American EST.