After the entire country held its breath for the first half of the day, offices closed at noon and the military, The Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), prepared to do whatever it could to maintain some level of security. It was finally time to start the announcement for who was going to be the new president of Egypt. After a 45 minutes long speech about the vote counting process as well as different complaints being taking into account, which together made the Presidential Elections Commission (PEC) postpone the announcement from Thursday, June 21 to Sunday, June 24, the Commission finally announced Mohammed Mursi as Egypt’s new president.

Ever since the result of the first election round that announced that the two candidates to continue to the second run off were going to be Mohammed Mursi, representing the Muslim Brotherhood, and Ahmed Shafiq, who among revolutionists in particular is considered an old regime figure, the scepticism about the credibility of the general election process has seemed to increase.

This distrust was furthered by the lack of transparency: the people were about to vote for whom  they would like to see rule the country, and they simply felt they did not knew anything about either of the two candidates’ agendas. What were their aims for the country and how did each of them plan on achieving this goal? However, with the SCAF placed as the country’s controlling mechanism for the last year and a half since Mubarak stepped down, there has been a very strong agreement among the revolutionists that the military would prefer to have a man from the old regime, which would make them ensure that Shafiq would be the winner of the second presidential run off.

Many even doubted that he had obtained enough votes to continue to the second round, which then would be due to SCAF’s control over the situation. Furthermore, the sudden decision about dismissing the newly elected parliament, for which the members had been elected during the three election rounds Egypt faced earlier this year and the end of last year, added to the suspicions about the interference of the military in ensuring that the coming political situation would be one that they would approve of.

According to revolutionists, this would mean that Ahmed Shafiq would be the new president, and that would be stepping back to the time of Mubarak, many believed. This would have made the martyrs die for nothing, and there has been a clear agreement among the people of the revolution that they would not allow that to happen, meaning that they would start a new revolution like the one the entire world witnessed last January.

Maybe this lack of trust to the SCAF, who has chosen the people sitting in the PEC, in addition to the very long, very detailed speech before announcing the result was thereason for the relief and exhilaration so that was overwhelming to many Egyptians. They made the streets float with happiness, chanter, drum play, clapping, singing and dancing, while the cars were honking their horns and people shouted Mursi’s name, as if they had just win a championship with him making the final and crucial goal.

The Egyptians truly deserve the victory many of them seem to find in this announcement, and tonight it is best to not worry about which consequences this result might end up having for Egypt and just congratulate all Egyptians who just experienced the result of their first free presidential election, which they themselves earned by being united–hopefully they will keep this in mind as time passes: One Nation!

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About the author

Mette Nielsen
MA student in Culture, Communication & Globalisation, specializing in International Migration and Ethnic Relations, Aalborg University, Denmark. Currently located in Egypt. Main areas of interest; Migration, Human Rights/Minority Rights, Intercultural Dialogue, Civil Society. Cairo, Egypt.