CAIRO —As the Muslim Brotherhood declared victory for its candidate in Egypt’s runoff election, the ruling military issued an interim constitution Sunday defining the new president’s authorities, a move showing that the generals will maintain the lion’s share of power.
With parliament dissolved and martial law effectively in force, the generals granted themselves considerable authorities. They will be the de facto lawmakers, control the budget and will control who writes the permanent constitution that will define the country’s future.
Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood declared that its candidate, Mohammed Morsi, won the presidential election. Morsi “is the first civilian, popularly elected Egyptian president,” the group said on its website.
The declaration was based on returns the Brotherhood reported from 95 percent of the more than 13,000 polling stations nationwide. The returns showed Morsi with 52 percent of the vote, his opponent former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq with 48 percent. A million votes separated the two, which a Brotherhood spokesman said the remaining votes could not overcome the difference for Shafiq.
A victory by Morsi could translate into a rockier tussle for spheres of power between his Muslim Brotherhood and the military.
Shafiq, who was former President Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister and is a former air force commander, was seen as the generals’ favorite. His opponents feared that if elected, he would be a continuation of the military-backed, authoritarian police state that Mubarak ran for 29 years.
The Brotherhood took a defiant tone with the military Sunday in an apparent bid to rally the public to its side in the last hours of voting after two days of seemingly tepid turnout. It warned of protests if Shafiq won.
It rejected last week’s order by the Supreme Constitutional Court dissolving parliament, where the Brotherhood was the largest party, as a “coup against the entire democratic process.” It also rejected the military’s right to declare an interim constitution and vowed that an assembly created by parliament last week before its dissolution will write the new charter, not one picked by the military’s leaders.
“If it happens that they announce he (Shafiq) is the winner, then there is forgery,” Brotherhood spokesman Murad Mohammed Ali said earlier Sunday. “We will return to the streets” — though he added, “we don’t believe in violence.”
The race has been deeply polarizing. Critics of Shafiq, an admirer and longtime friend of Mubarak, see him as an extension of the old regime that millions sought to uproot when they staged an uprising that toppled Mubarak 16 months ago.
Morsi’s opponents, in turn, feared that if he won, the Brotherhood would take over the nation and turn it into an Islamic state, curbing freedoms and consigning minority Christians and women to second-class citizens.
