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| Who will Mohamed Mursi (left) face in the June runoff? |
With counting underway after two days of voting in Egypt’s first free and
transparent presidential elections, Egyptian media superstar and talk show host
Imad Adeeb is in no doubt: “None of the 13 candidates will win an outright
majority.”
He expects a June 16-17 runoff
between the top two candidates to pit the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi
against one of four other frontrunners.
His likely challenger in
the runoff will either be moderate Islamist Abdelmoneim Abulfotouh, or one of
three liberals -- ex-premier Ahmed Shafiq, former Arab League chief Amr Moussa or
leftist Hamdeen Sabahi.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s election campaign
headquarters announced at a press conference the results they have so far show
Mursi facing Shafiq in about three weeks’ time.
At
this writing, results aggregated by Ahram Online in 15 different governorates
show a total of 11,088,494 voters cast their ballots in these governorates as
follows:
Mursi 2,696,652
(24.03 per cent)
Sabahi
2,581,190
(23.3 per cent)
Shafiq
2,555,730
(23.03 per cent)
Abulfotouh
2,012,019
(18.1 per cent)
Moussa 1,542,831 (11.2 per cent)
Official results are not due to be
announced for days, but it looks likely voters will have a good idea of the top
runner and his challenger by tomorrow, Saturday.
Adeeb, in his column for today’s edition of Saudi Asharq Alawsat, writes, “The question now is who will Mursi’s
challenger be?
“So far, there are no clear indications. What we can say though is that the
Coptic vote went to Shafiq. Women voters were divided between Mursi and
Abulfotouh on the one hand and Shafiq and Moussa, on the other.
“It can also be said most businessmen voted for either Shafiq or Moussa.
Merchants chose between Mursi and Shafiq. Youths were deeply split in choosing
between Islamist and pro-revolution currents…
“As for the turnout, it will range between a minimum of 50 percent and a
maximum of 60 percent.”
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Mursi, who is 61 and seems certain to be in the
June 16-17 runoff, received a scholarship from
the University of Southern California for academic excellence in
engineering in the early 1980s and earned a Masters Degree and PhD in rocket science in 1982.
His profile
on Ahram Online shows he served as a professor at California State
University in North Ridge between 1982 and 1985.
On completing his overseas
academic endeavors, Mursi headed the engineering department at Zagazig
University in Egypt between 1985 and 2010.
He was the official
spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood’s parliamentary bloc from 2000 to 2005.
