Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi Named New Egyptian President
Egypt’s electoral commission announced Sunday that Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi would be sworn in as president, becoming the Arab world’s first elected Islamist head of state after more than a year of popular uprisings that ousted autocrats and fueled the rise of political Islam in the region.
Although Egypt’s ruling generals blunted the power of the presidency shortly after polls closed last weekend, Morsi’s victory represented a remarkable turn of fortunes. The organization was outlawed and systematically suppressed for decades, including under the three-decade regime of deposed former president Hosni Mubarak.
Election officials said Morsi beat former Mubarak prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, whom he had faced in a runoff. A Morsi loss could have generated serious political instability; Brotherhood supporters had vowed to continue their demonstrations if that was the outcome, saying it would have amounted to electoral theft.