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Former Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi won a landslide victory in a presidential election on Thursday but a low turnout may have deprived him of the strong mandate he needs to fix the economy and face down an Islamist insurgency. Sisi won 93.3 percent of votes cast, judicial sources said, with most ballots counted after three days of voting. His only rival, leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi, gained 3 percent while 3.7 percent of votes were declared void. But a lower-than-expected turnout figure raised questions about the credibility of a man idolised by his supporters as a hero who can...

The government and media harangued voters to go to the polls Tuesday in the second and final day of Egypt’s presidential election, worried that turnout was weaker than expected in a vote in which the front-runner, former army chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, is trying to garner an overwhelming show of support. There were no official figures on turnout in the previous day’s voting. But monitoring groups said Monday saw moderate in some places and often thin or non-existent in other areas, particularly where Islamists—el-Sissi’s top opponents—dominate. El-Sissi, who removed Egypt’s first freely elected president last year, is poised for an almost...

Egypt's military strongman, Field Marshal Abdulfattah al-Sisi, has resigned as defence minister, paving the way for a run for the presidency and a return to the decades in which the country was led by long-serving military officers. Field Marshal Sisi summoned a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to hand in his formal notice and bring to an end his 18-month term, in which he shot from being a virtually unknown younger general to one of the Middle East's most powerful men. People walk past a poster featuring Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in downtown Cairo Photo: Mohamed Abd...

Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain have been asked by President Barack Obama to travel to Egypt next week to urge the military to move ahead on new elections, the senators said Tuesday. Egypt has been roiled by deadly protests since President Mohammed Morsi was toppled in a military coup on July 3, developments that have threatened the $1.5 billion in annual U.S. military and economic aid to the Arab world’s most populous country. Responding to reporters’ questions Tuesday about an attempt to cut off the aid, Graham offered up word that Obama has sought the help of the...

Under pressure from at home and perhaps especially abroad, the new interim government in Egypt announced a timetable for new elections, which will take place after replacing the current constitution that the Muslim Brotherhood pushed through after winning office in the last elections a year ago. The sequence envisions elections by February, after a four-month process of either replacing or significantly amending the constitution and holding a referendum for approval: Egypt’s interim leadership laid out a fast-track timetable to elect a new president and parliament by early next year, in a move that could ease Western concerns about the future...

The democracy fetish would be worth having if it were about promoting real democracy. Instead, as illustrated by media coverage of the military coup that ousted Egypt’s popularly elected Muslim Brotherhood president, we’re still confusing democratic legitimacy with legitimate democracy. The latter is real — a culture of liberty that safeguards minority rights. Attaining it is a worthy aspiration, but one that requires years of patient, disciplined, and often unpopular work. The former is an illusion — the pretense that if a Muslim country holds popular elections and elects totalitarian Islamists, voila, it has a “democracy,” and progressives the world...

Eight people have been killed and hundreds wounded, but the latest bloody chapter in Egypt’s unhappy recent history is about to draw to a close: this Sunday a referendum will be held on the proposed new constitution, and that, presumably, will be the end of that. And what it will most likely herald is the end of the brief era of any meaningful voting in Egypt, and of any hope on the part of women and Egyptian Christians for equality of rights before the law.Underlining the claim that to oppose their rule is to oppose Islam itself, the Muslim Brotherhood...

Egypt’s Constitution should be based on the Koran and Sharia law, presidential candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood Islamist movement Mohamed Morsi said. “The Koran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our path and death in the name of Allah is our goal,” Morsi said in his election speech before Cairo University students on Saturday night. Today Egypt is close as never before to the triumph of Islam at all the state levels, he said. “Today we can establish Sharia law because our nation will acquire well-being only with Islam and Sharia. The Muslim Brothers and the...

Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood told supporters last month, “Jihad is our path and death in the name of Allah is our goal.” Lovely. Voice of Russia reported, via ROP: Egypt’s Constitution should be based on the Koran and Sharia law, presidential candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood Islamist movement Mohamed Morsi said. “The Koran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our path and death in the name of Allah is our goal,” Morsi said in his election speech before Cairo University students on Saturday night. Today Egypt is close as never...

White House spokesman Jay Carney issued the following statement in response to the Egyptian presidential election: "The United States congratulates Dr. Mohamed Morsi on his victory in Egypt’s Presidential election, and we congratulate the Egyptian people for this milestone in their transition to democracy. "We look forward to working together with President-elect Morsi and the government he forms, on the basis of mutual respect, to advance the many shared interests between Egypt and the United States. We believe that it is important for President-elect Morsi to take steps at this historic time to advance national unity by reaching out to...

Egypt's New President Morsi, Israel's New Neighbor, Issues A Warning

The White House does not want you to remember some facts today. Unfortunately for them, the internet never forgets. In February of last year, the White House was very busy giving the Muslim Brotherhood free PR. This prompted the Telegraph to write an article entitled, "The Muslim Brotherhood gets a PR makeover from the Obama administration." In the piece, Administration officials are quoted as saying that the Muslim Brotherhood is a "largely secular" organisation that "eschewed violence." Today, after winning the Presidency, the M.B. declared that, "Allah willing," their new capital would be in Jerusalem. Something tells me that they...

Breaking; Egyptian electoral commission declares Mohammed Morsi, candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, or Ikwhan, winner of the Presidential run-off.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Mursi has been declared the winner of Egypt's presidential election run-off. He won 51.73% of the vote, beating former PM Ahmed Shafiq, the Higher Presidential Election Commission said. The head of the panel of judges, Farouq Sultan, said it had upheld some of the 466 complaints by the candidates, but that the election result still stood.

Egypt's Administrative Court on Wednesday evening issues ruling to suspend presidential elections set for 23/24 May.

The disqualification of several top presidential candidates would redraw Egypt's electoral map just ahead of next month's vote. Candidates say they'll appeal. The race for the Egyptian presidency took a dramatic turn on Saturday when the authorities disqualified front-runners, including Hosni Mubarak's spy chief, a Muslim Brotherhood candidate, and a Salafi preacher whose lawyer warned that "a major crisis" was looming. The presidential election is the climax of a transition to civilian rule being led by the military council that assumed power from Mubarak on Feb. 11, 2011, at the height of the uprising against his three decades in power....

The race for the Egyptian presidency took a dramatic turn on Saturday when the authorities disqualified front-runners including Hosni Mubarak's spy chief, a Muslim Brotherhood candidate and a Salafi preacher whose lawyer warned that "a major crisis" was looming. The presidential election is the climax of a transition to civilian rule being led by the military council that assumed power from Mubarak on February 11, 2011 at the height of the uprising against his three decades in power. The generals are due to hand power to the elected president on July 1. The disqualifications add to the drama of a...

Cairo (CNN) -- Results of the first round of voting from Egypt's historic election are being postponed, the country's military rulers said Thursday. The announcement will come Friday or Saturday, said Amir Imam, spokesman for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. The first voting since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak took place Monday and Tuesday, the first in a multi-step process to pick members of the lower house of Parliament. Those lawmakers will be tasked with drafting a new constitution. Two Islamist parties, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Noor Salafi, have claimed a lead in ballot counting, but...

The Muslim Brotherhood was today accused of attempting to rig Egypt's election by handing out gifts and food at polling stations in a desperate attempt to win power. the Islamist party, which is expected to secure a large share of the votes, had a strong presence both inside and outside polling stations. Onlookers claimed some Brotherhood groups were allowed to set up tables with laptop computers in order to show "people how to vote". ... The Freedom and Justice Party (Muslim Brotherhood) are the most organised party right now

The Muslim Brotherhood said on Wednesday it was leading in the initial count of results from the first round of Egypt's parliamentary election and one source in its party said it had secured 40 percent of votes cast for party lists. A member of the rival liberal Egyptian Bloc also said that in Cairo, one area that voted on Monday and Tuesday, the list led by the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) had 40 to 50 percent of votes. His Bloc had 20 to 30 percent, he said.