Egypt's ruling military council warned on Friday that it would use its powers to overcome protesters' threats to confront the regime if it announced a former general won last week's presidential election.
Egypt's ruling military council warned on Friday that it would use its powers to overcome protesters' threats to confront the regime if it announced a former general won last week's presidential election.
In a strongly worded statement, it accused the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate, Mohamed Morsi, of stirring up emotions that drew thousands into Cairo's Tahrir Square as a mounting political crisis threatened to come to a head. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces said everyone should accept its "legal decisions" and refused to reverse its dissolution of parliament and its declaration reserving sweeping powers and a constitutional veto.
"The army and the police will combat any attacks on Egypt's public or private institutions and enforce the law immediately," a spokesperson said. He intoned his statement invisibly from behind a screen on state television, using the menacing style of the decades-long military dictatorship of the deposed and now ailing president, Hosni Mubarak.
Morsi retorted that the generals were defying the democratic will of the people and said protests would go on. The Brotherhood has claimed that he won a narrow but clear victory. The election commission is expected to release the result of last week's vote during the weekend. It was due on Thursday but was delayed while 400 individual appeals were considered.
Brotherhood supporters fear that the delay is intended to enable the commission to find a way of disqualifying enough voters to ensure it can give victory to the former general and Mubarak-era prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, who trailed by just short of a million votes, according to most unofficial counts. Shafiq has said he is confident that he will be declared the winner.
The deadlock between Egypt's two strongest forces has raised doubts about the prospects for consensual democracy, though some see possible compromise if Morsi does become president.
The Brotherhood has unveiled a new coalition of secular activists and writers who said they were supporting Morsi in his battle with the military. Even if he is named the winner, he will have to fight the army's overwhelming constitutional power to exert any authority.
In return for the support of groups such as the April 6 movement, which helped organise last year's revolution, Morsi promised to appoint a unity government led by a non-Brotherhood prime minister.
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