EGYPT’S OUSTED president Hosni Mubarak yesterday lay in an intensive care unit in a military hospital as both his potential successors claimed victory in last weekend’s run-off poll.
Mr Mubarak’s last prime minister, Ahmad Shafik, argued he had defeated the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsy, deepening the polarisation fostered during the hotly contested election campaign.
Following Tuesday’s protest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the cradle of the uprising that toppled Mr Mubarak, a spokesman for the brotherhood, Mahmoud Ghozlan, warned there would be a “dangerous face-off” between the people and the army if Mr Shafik, who has military backing, is proclaimed president. This would “signal an obvious military coup. I hope the [ruling] military council listens to the will of the people.”
Seeking to address the concerns of secular Egyptians regarding the influence of religious conservatives on Mr Morsy, Mr Gozlan pledged the brotherhood’s guidance bureau, its supreme body, would not have a role in appointing his aides if he is named the winner.
Mr Morsy’s camp insists he won nearly one million more votes than Mr Shafik, a contention upheld by the Judges for Egypt movement which monitored the poll along with civil rights organisations.
Farouk Sultan, head of the election commission, said the candidates had submitted 400 complaints of violations and suggest- ed the proclamation of the result, due today, could be postponed until Saturday or Sunday. Turnout was said to be 46.4 per cent in the first round in May and 51.7 per cent for the second round, but commentators consider the run-off figure too high.
The interior ministry has submitted to prime minister Kamal El-Ganzouri a plan to protect key facilities if there are disturbances once the election result is announced and there are reports troops have been reinforced along the Suez Canal, on the Cairo-Alexandria highway and in other sensitive locations to maintain order.
In a bid to demonstrate that it is business as usual in spite of political uncertainty, the ruling military council is set to approve the state budget for 2012-2013, a task it assumed after the dissolution of the lower house of parliament last week.
Veteran observer Youssef Zaki said whoever wins, the country is nearly equally divided over candidates whom many, if not most, Egyptians deeply dislike. In his view, the military and the brotherhood, which have been “fighting each other since the 1950s, are two sides of the same coin”. He believes they will continue and “weaken each other”, while secular liberals and revolutionaries will be compelled to form a third force that will gain strength and successfully challenge the old adversaries.
Scores of supporters and opponents gathered outside the hospital where Mr Mubarak is being treated for the effects of a stroke. His lawyer, Farid El-Deeb, denied reports he was dying, and said he was responding positively to care.
While admirers carried his portraits and wept, detractors criticised his his 30-year reign.
Many Egyptians suspect doctors have invented or exaggerated his collapse in order to justify moving him from Tora prison hospital to the more comfortable Maadi facility, where he can be visited by his wife and daughters-in-law.
Mr Mubarak’s state of health has been the subject of speculation and debate ever since he was ousted 16 months ago, and particularly since he was handed a life sentence on June 2nd. A commentator, angry over the fuss made over the 84-year old ailing ex-president, snapped, “Mubarak is finished. He’s no longer an issue.”
For most Egyptians, the identity of his successor is far more important than his fate.
