Going through the Maze of Presidential Elections Results 2012

The unofficial results of the Egyptian presidential elections primary (first round) could only be described as both shocking and anticlimactic for many including me, even though I have to concede it’s no big surprise (after the parliamentary elections results) that we’ll have in the runoff the Muslim Brotherhood man Morsi, AKA the spare tire since he was the backup man for their man candidate El-Shater in case he got disqualified which actually happened. But, if you were following the western media closely, you definitely were expecting Moussa, the former foreign affairs minister, to be in the runoff if not the winner of the primary. If you were following activists on Facebook or Twitter, you would have expected at least one of the revolution’s figures in the runoff. Shafik’s win at this stage was definitely a big surprise to many. I, myself, considered the nightmarish scenario of Shafik vs. Morsi in the runoff as a distasteful joke; well the joke was on me or us (if you share my views)!!

So assuming a modicum of fairness, I have tried to think about the results. The way I see it, Morsi with all the might of the brotherhood behind him managed to get only a quarter of the votes in the primary. Shafik with all the dead, the army conscripts and also some legally alive registered voters (to be fair) managed to get almost another quarter. Sabahi, the aspiring Nasserist, and Abol Fotoh, the self-proclaimed moderate Isalmist with liberal inclination, got 21 and 18% respectively. Moussa who was basking in international attention would have fared a lot better if we allowed the western media to vote, but as luck or should I say elections rules would have it, they were not allowed to do so and Moussa ended up bringing the rear of the candidates who had some potential to succeed with 11% of the votes.

What these results tell us is that no single candidate had the majority of voters backing him (whatever he/his supporters claim). The highest percentage being only a quarter of those who voted (who are already only 43% of registered voters). The difference in the vote percentage (with Moussa out of the equation) between the highest and lowest is 7%. So where are we headed to? Is Egypt going to be stuck forever in the dichotomous power struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Army? Faced with the worst case scenario, who will people choose in the runoff?