Ahmed Shafiq
CAIRO (AFP) ― The campaign of Egyptian presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq said on Monday it rejected a claim by the Muslim Brotherhood that its candidate Mohammed Mursi had won a historic presidential election.
“We reject it completely,” Shafiq campaign offical Mahmud Barakeh told reporters of the Brotherhood’s proclaimed victory.
“We are astonished by this bizarre behavior which amounts to a hijacking of the election results,” he added, saying Shafiq’s campaign had figures showing him leading the vote.
The Muslim Brotherhood announced Mursi’s projected victory around 3:30 a.m. local time, with votes from over 90 percent of the country’s polling stations tallied.
At a press conference shortly afterwards, Mursi’s campaign director Ahmed Abdelati confirmed the projected victory, saying he had garnered 52.5 percent of the vote to 47.5 percent for Shafiq, a former prime minister under the ousted regime of president Hosni Mubarak.
“Its a moment that all the Egyptian people have waited for,” he said.