Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Egypt's Military-backed Candidate Claims Victory in Presidential Elections; Official Results Due Thursday

Shafiq's campaign declares electoral win for Mubarak-era PM

Tue Jun 19, 2012 5:10PM GMT

The campaign for Egyptian candidate Ahmed Shafiq has declared the former regime's prime minister as the winner of the country's presidential race.

"We are certain that the next president of Egypt is General Shafiq," his campaign spokesman Ahmed Sarhan told a news conference on Tuesday, AFP reported.

The announcement came after the country's largest political party, the Muslim Brotherhood, said the official results of the presidential election confirm its candidate has won.

It stated that Mohamed Morsi ended up by a margin of four percentage points ahead of Shafiq, who served as the last premier under dictator Hosni Mubarak before his ouster in 2011.

Shafiq's campaign declined to give full vote figures, but Sarhan said Mubarak's right-hand had won by more by than 500,000 votes. Appeals submitted by his campaign could affect about a million votes in the official result, he added.

The results of the June 16-17 runoff vote are expected to be made public on Thursday.

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