Egypt braced for confrontation over 'coup'

The Muslim Brotherhood claimed yesterday (Wednesday) that Egypt's ruling military officers might be preparing to steal the presidency, warning there would be a "confrontation" if their candidate was not confirmed as winner today.

The Presidential Election Commission is due to announce formally the result of last weekend's election, the first free vote for a leader in Egypt's history.

The Brotherhood and most newspapers and independent panels say that Mohammed Morsi, the leader of the Brotherhood's political front, the Freedom and Justice Party, won by a slim margin of about 52 per cent to 48 per cent.

His opponent, Ahmed Shafiq, a general like the members of the ruling Supreme Military Council of the Armed Forces, claims that he will be announced victorious, prompting speculation that the army is preparing for a new "power grab".

"If Shafiq is declared the winner, this will make the coup clear," a spokesman, Mahmoud Ghozlah, told the Saudi-backed newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat. "This encroachment on the result may lead to a confrontation between the people and the army."

Suspicions over the intentions of the army among both the Brotherhood and the young secular revolutionaries was exacerbated by the sudden - and incorrect - announcement that ex-president Hosni Mubarak was "clinically dead" on Tuesday night.

The election polls closed on Sunday night, with 14,000 polling stations handing in their results to the commission and the candidates by next morning. Shafiq has yet to make clear how his figures for the totals are different from everyone else's.

The commission has confirmed that it is examining 400 complaints from both sides, but Dr Morsi's lead of almost a million votes would require very heavy and one-sided disqualifications to be overturned. There were further reports last night that the commission, whose head, Farouq Sultan, was appointed by Mubarak, was preparing to postpone an announcement.

The Brotherhood has so far backed off a major showdown with the generals, even though the army has already announced the dissolution of the Brotherhood-led parliament and reserved to itself the right to legislate, set a national budget and veto any part of the new constitution that is being drawn up.

The Brotherhood led a march of tens of thousands of people to Tahrir Square on Tuesday night in protest but, in contrast to the days of revolutionary fervour leading to the overthrow of Mubarak, they then dispersed.

Yesterday, a cluster of banners and a handful of young men and food stalls were the only sign of resistance to the all-powerful military council.

Reports of Mubarak's demise distracted protesters on Tuesday night.

Although there seems no doubt that he is seriously ill - his doctors say he suffered a stroke and remained unconscious and on life support - his opponents claim there is a pattern of exaggerating his health crises in order to win sympathy and to distract from politics.

On Tuesday night, various reports had Mubarak "clinically dead", "dead", or in a coma. His heart reportedly failed in prison and had to be defibrillated.
 
Mubarak, 84, who was jailed for life earlier this month for complicity in the murder of hundreds of protesters in the uprising last year, was joined by his wife Suzanne at the Maadi Military Hospital where he was taken on Tuesday night from Tora Prison.

The premature announcement of his death by state media on Tuesday night, combined with the uncertain outcome of the election, caused much mirth on social networks. "We have two presidents, and a third who is both dead and alive," said one comment on Twitter.