Egyptians voted yesterday in the country’s landmark presidential runoff, with the choice of an ex-prime minister under ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and an Islamist candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood after a race that has deeply polarized the nation.
The two-days of balloting will produce Egypt’s first president since a popular uprising last year led to the fall of Mubarak, who is now serving a life sentence.
The runoff pits Ahmed Shafiq, who was a career Air Force officer like Mubarak against Mohammed Morsi, a US-trained engineer. The winner will be only the fifth Egyptian president since the monarchy was overthrown nearly 60 years ago.
Shafiq is viewed as an extension of Mubarak’s authoritarian regime while Morsi has raised fears of more religion in government and restricted freedoms if he wins.
The election is supposed to be the last stop in a turbulent transition overseen by the military generals who took over from Mubarak, but the issue of whether they will genuinely surrender power by July 1 as promised has come under question, particularly as the military-backed government this week gave military police and intelligence agents the right to arrest civilians for a host of suspected crimes — a move that was widely interpreted as a de facto declaration of martial law.
On Thursday, judges appointed by the former president before he was toppled dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament and ruled that Shafiq could stay in the race despite legislation barring Mubarak regime figures from running for office.
“The revolution was stolen from us,” merchant Nabil -Abdel-Fatah said as he waited in line outside a polling center in Cairo’s working-class district of Imbaba. He said he planned to vote for Shafiq.
“We can easily get rid of him if we want to, but not the Brotherhood, which will cling to power,” he said.
Brotherhood supporter Amin Sayed said he had planned to boycott the vote, but changed his mind after the rulings this week by Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court.
“I came to vote for the Brotherhood and the revolution and to spite the military council,” he said outside the same polling center in Imbaba, an Islamist stronghold.
“If Shafiq wins, we will return to the streets,” he said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of