Egypt: The Resurrection of Ahmed Shafiq

The initial results of the first stage of the Egyptian presidential election indicate that Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi and former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq will take part in the runoff vote on June 16 and 17.
There has been widespread shock at the reemergence of Shafiq, one of the “feloul”, or “remnants” of Mubarak's regime. It seems that a majority of Copts as well as many others chose to vote for Shafiq fearing the Islamization of the country and seeking stability.
Netizens have been strongly divided over Ahmed Shafiq's success.

Ahmed Shafiq press conference, 14/5/2012. Image by Virginie Nguyen (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

In a blog post entitled “It is Time of Silence”, Zeinab Mohamed wrote:

My only consolation is that from 90 million Egyptians only 50% of the eligible voters in the country (50 million) participated in this election so we are speaking about 25 million voters only, the historical elections that reminds me of the Six-Day War defeat.
I do not have any words, it is like choosing between two hells: the Muslim brotherhood or Shafiq!!!
We are all to blame especially the #Jan25 Revolutionaries who sat back in bubbly Cairo ‘that voted for Shafiq’ and in their closed social networks realms. We are responsible for this without doubt.
I do not want to speak now but one thing for sure I feel my generation has the same feeling that the 1967 generation felt and I am afraid of that feeling.

Shafiq campaign poster near Shafiq headquarters sprayed with "feloul". Image from Al Jazeera Live Blog (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Hafsa Halawa tweeted angrily:

@Hhafoos: #mubarak is pissin his pants from laughter right now…

Caricature artist Ahmed El Massry expressed his disappointment:

@AElMassry: بعد النتيجه دى يبقى بقى ‎‫#احنا_اسفين_يا_شهداء‬‏

After this result, we are sorry, martyrs

Egyptian-American journalist Reem Abdellatif warned:

@Reem_Abdellatif: Political experts i've talked to expect #Egypt to head toward collision w/ “demos, violence, claims of fraud” if #Shafiq wins.

Other people, on the other hand, support Ahmed Shafiq and celebrated his win. Expatriate businessman Ashraf Ismail explained why he supports Shafiq:

Mr Shafiq has a both conservative and liberal way of thinking and is known to be a very practical person aiming to bring stability to the country and solid investments. Whereas Mr Morsi is an Islamist hardliner with an affiliation to a group that has a deceitful history full of violence.
In terms of future investments and socio-economic development programmes, it is widely envisaged that Egypt’s economy will rapidly grow under Mr Shafiq’s development progamme. Others do have reservations and fears about the state of affairs that Egypt will go through should Mr Morsi wins this race.

Ranya Khalifa pointed out:

@RanyaKhalifa: Stop blaming Copts for #Shafiq's rise!! If you want a “democracy” then don't take it piecemeal..Egyptians are free to choose whom they want!

Journalist Rawya Rageh quoted Shafiq:

@RawyaRageh: #Shafiq: No such thing as I'm affiliated to the old regime, if we say so, then the whole of #Egypt is. We need to grow up, drop this issue.

Although some revolutionary factions warned they will take to the streets if Ahmed Shafiq wins, the leader of Al Nour Party, Egypt's major Salafist party said that they would not protest.
This post is part of our special coverage of Egypt Elections 2011/2012.

Written by Salah Almhamdi Global Voices