Egypt’s stark choice

An Islamist leader will vie with a stalwart of the old regime to become the first elected president in Egyptian history, after an initial round of elections last week eliminated all the more-moderate contenders. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Mursi, who has called for stricter adherence to Islamic law, finished first in the 13-candidate race with 25 percent of the vote. Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister in ex-dictator Hosni Mubarak’s regime, got 24 percent with his pledge to “neutralize” Islamists and restore security with an “iron fist.” The two will face one another in a runoff on June 16 and 17.

The outcome infuriated many among the more than 40 percent of Egyptians who supported centrist, secular, and liberal candidates. An angry mob set fire to Shafiq’s headquarters this week, and thousands of demonstrators gathered to protest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, site of the revolution that ousted Mubarak in February 2011. In a bid for their support, Mursi vowed to form a broad coalition government, saying, “The superman era is over.”

Egypt is “back to square zero,” said Ahmed Mahmoud in Al-Ahram (Egypt), “as if there were no martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the sake of the liberty of this nation.” Our only hope is that whoever wins the runoff will find his power circumscribed by the military. Welcome to democracy, said Afshin Molavi in The National (United Arab Emirates). Elections are “messy and often unsatisfying.” Now centrists have learned that if they want to win an election, they have to rally around a single candidate.

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It’s not as bad as it looks, said Trudy Rubin in The Philadelphia Inquirer. The main takeaway is that “the Muslim Brotherhood is not invincible.” Though Mursi was backed by the only organized party, three quarters of Egyptian voters picked someone else. Even if Mursi wins, said Fouad Ajami in The Wall Street Journal, he can’t create a theocracy like Iran or Saudi Arabia—Egypt is far too dependent on foreign aid and tourism. And a Shafiq win would not be a simple return to the old regime, for “a new republic has emerged.” The outcome may not be ideal, but “this is not the first time that the fruits of a revolution were picked by those who were strangers to its exertions.”