CAIRO —A mob set fire late Monday to the campaign headquarters of one of the two Egyptian presidential politicians facing each other in a runoff that will decide a new leader after last year’s popular uprising, the first sign of unrest after the voting yielded divisive candidates.
The attack on Ahmed Shafiq’s office came just hours after the country’s election commission announced that he would face the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate, Mohammed Morsi, in a June 16-17 runoff.
The second round, pitting Shafiq — who was the last prime minister under ousted President Hosni Mubarak — against Morsi — backed by the country’s most-powerful Islamist movement — is a nightmare scenario for the thousands of Egyptians who took to the streets last year to demand regime change, freedom and social equality.
Many of the so-called revolutionaries say they want neither a return to the old regime nor religious rule.
“The choice can’t be between a religious state and an autocratic state. Then we have done nothing,” said Ahmed Bassiouni, 35, who was sitting in Cairo’s downtown Tahrir Square in the midst of a growing protest.
In an upscale neighborhood of Cairo, mobs of young men used bricks to smash the windows of Shafiq’s headquarters, tossing out campaign signs and tearing up his posters. Then, they set fire to the building. There were no reports of injuries. Police arrested eight people.
His campaign blamed supporters of leftist candidate Hamdeen Sabahi, who came in third in the race, and backers of another losing candidate, Khaled Ali, who was protesting the election results Monday evening in Tahrir Square, the center of last year’s uprising.
