Runoff candidate's office burned as violence breaks out in Egypt
Source: Agencies |
May 30, 2012, Wednesday
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A mob set fire to the campaign headquarters of one of the two Egyptian presidential politicians facing 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 late Monday on Ahmed Shafiq's office came just hours after Egypt'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 ousted President Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister, 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 government 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.
Shafiq's 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.
Shafiq, also a former air force commander, was forced out of office as prime minister by protesters shortly after Mubarak's fall. He has since presented himself as a figure who can restore calm to a country wracked by 15 months of sometimes violent protests and deterioration in internal security. He has expressed a zero-tolerance attitude toward protests, reflecting his background in the military and in the former regime, which put down protests with brutal force and jailed opponents.
Shortly after the protesters ransacked the campaign office, fire trucks and police arrived as several hundred of Shafiq's supporters gathered outside the building, carrying his picture and chanting slogans against the Muslim Brotherhood, which controls the parliament and is now seeking the presidency.
"The Brotherhood are enemies of God!," chanted the crowd.
The Morsi-Shafiq runoff is a polarizing contest. It mirrors the conflict between Mubarak, himself a career air force officer like Shafiq, and the Islamists he jailed and tortured throughout his years in power. But it sidelines the mostly young, secular activists who led the popular uprising last year.
The attack late Monday on Ahmed Shafiq's office came just hours after Egypt'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 ousted President Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister, 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 government 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.
Shafiq's 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.
Shafiq, also a former air force commander, was forced out of office as prime minister by protesters shortly after Mubarak's fall. He has since presented himself as a figure who can restore calm to a country wracked by 15 months of sometimes violent protests and deterioration in internal security. He has expressed a zero-tolerance attitude toward protests, reflecting his background in the military and in the former regime, which put down protests with brutal force and jailed opponents.
Shortly after the protesters ransacked the campaign office, fire trucks and police arrived as several hundred of Shafiq's supporters gathered outside the building, carrying his picture and chanting slogans against the Muslim Brotherhood, which controls the parliament and is now seeking the presidency.
"The Brotherhood are enemies of God!," chanted the crowd.
The Morsi-Shafiq runoff is a polarizing contest. It mirrors the conflict between Mubarak, himself a career air force officer like Shafiq, and the Islamists he jailed and tortured throughout his years in power. But it sidelines the mostly young, secular activists who led the popular uprising last year.
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