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Report: Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi in Run-off

As the first round of presidential elections begin to wind down, it looks like at least one of the two candidates who will end up in a run-off will be Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi.

Via The Blaze:

The candidate of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood won a spot in a run-off election, according to partial results Friday from Egypt’s first genuinely competitive presidential election. A former prime minister and a leftist were vying for second place and a chance to run against him to become the country’s next leader.

The run-off will be held on June 16-17, pitting the two top contenders from the first round of voting held Wednesday and Thursday. The victor is to be announced June 21.

The landmark vote — the fruit of last year’s uprising that toppled longtime leader Hosni Mubarak — turned into a heated battle between Islamist candidates and secular figures rooted in Mubarak’s old regime. The most polarizing figures in the race were the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi and former air force commander and former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, a veteran of Mubarak’s rule.

By midday Friday, the vote counting had been completed in 20 of the country’s 27 provinces – though workers were still plowing through the paper ballots from Egypt’s biggest cities, Cairo and its sister city Giza and the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria.

Morsi was in the lead with 30.8 percent of the ballots so far, according to the independent newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm, which was compiling reports from counters. That is likely enough to put him into the run-off.

Of course, if Mursi is in the run-off, it would all but eliminate the candidate of choice for leading Muslim Brotherhood cleric, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who endorsed former Muslim Brotherhood member Abdel Moneim Abol-Fotouh. Incidentally, just last week, CNBC reported that Fotouh was the front-runner. If the AP report is accurate, Fotouh is all but out of the race now.

Folks might remember this video of an Egyptian cleric exhorting a crowd to support Mursi by pledging that if elected, the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate would make Jerusalem the ‘Caliphate Capital.’ Mursi can be seen in the background, nodding in approval:

If Mursi wins, the Muslim Brotherhood will be in control of Egypt – as they already have an overwhelming majority of the Parliament – and the efforts by the leftists in that country will have been counter-productive.

No surprise there.

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