Thousands of Egyptians rally in Tahrir amid election turmoil

Egypt is experiencing the biggest protests since last year when President Hosni Mubarak was forced out of office. All day Friday, tens of thousands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood poured into Tahrir Square despite the searing 100 degree heat.

The tension is rising. Egyptians held their first free presidential election last weekend but no winner has been announced yet.

Banned under the Mubarak regime, the Brotherhood believes their man, candidate Mohammed Morsi, won the election last week. And they turned out in force to send a message to the ruling generals.

"We will not leave this place until we achieve what we want until we achieve our freedom," said one demonstrator.

Egypt's military blames candidates for ongoing election unrest, warns Tahrir protesters
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Egyptians rally against military in Cairo's Tahrir

CBS News heard the same message from almost everyone we spoke with.

The ballots from last weekend's vote have been tallied, and the winner should have been announced yesterday. But there has been no official announcement. Instead, Egypt's election commission said it needs time to investigate charges of fraud from both sides.

That has the Brotherhood's supporters in the square worried that the generals are working behind the scenes to make sure their party doesn't win.

Just last week, the Supreme Court dissolved the parliament where the Muslim Brotherhood held a majority.

Today, Morsi urged the military to release the election results as soon as possible and strongly criticized the military's recent decree that stripped the presidency of much of its power.

Morsi's opponent, Ahmed Shafik, has also claimed victory. Shafik is a former air force general and Mubarak's last prime minister.

The protest has the look of last year's occupation of Tahrir Square, when Hosni Mubarak was forced from office after an 18-day revolution. The military warned protesters it would respond with "the utmost firmness" to anyone who threatened the interest of the state.

The protesters didn't seem intimidated.

"They can fight us, they can kill us but we will never leave this square. Never," one demonstrator said.

The election committee has given itself a Sunday deadline to declare a winner, but oftentimes these deadlines come and go.

[melpol12]

No longer will one Egyptian have expensive furniture and a plasma TV while his neighbor sits on the floor tuned into a Walkman. Cargo ships passing through the Suez Canal are carrying furniture and TVs, half should be donated to the poor.

[Nikos_Retsos]

The Egyptians are highly suspicious of the election results delay.
I believe the results are delayed because the Egyptian military and its bosses is Washington are trying to figure out a way to declare Ahmad Shafik winner of the presidential elections that will be acceptable to the people. The Military knows that the hundreds of thousands of Egyptians in Tahrir Square suspect that something sinister is being done to the results, and they are looking for some new trick that will pass master.

I won't be surprise if the SCAF invalidate the results of the presidential elections - to deny Mr. Morsi victory- and then ask the Egyptian Supreme Court to order new elections under different rules on some basis of proportionality and quotas that will dilute the popularity of Mr. Morsi, and help Mr. Shafik win.

Above all, the Egyptian must remember that what the SCAF does is not of their own making. It is what the U.S. demands from the SCAF to do, or the U.S. military aid will be cut off. At a time that the U.S. and Israel are trying to overthrow Assad in Syria to expand their influence, they are not going to allow Egypt to get out of their control! An unnamed Egyptian military source told Ahram online that "The ruling military council is determined not to let the Muslim Brotherhood "seize power." (The Guardian, June 21, 2012) On the same article, the Guardian quote sources saying that "The Egyptian Security Services appear to be prepared for Shafik to be declared president!"

And that is what the delay of the results is all about. But the Egyptians must understand that the U.S. is determined not to allow Egypt to exit its sphere of influence. The SCAF is assigned by the U.S. to keep Egypt in the U.S. fold, and on this mission they are not different than other U.S. military contractors in Pakistan and Afghanistan! They just carry their U.S. contract under the Egyptian flag and under patriotic labels!

The British literature writer Samuel Johnson said this about patriots like the SCAF: "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel!" And Oscar Wilde had an even worse opinion: "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious." And that is the kind of patriotism that the SCAF "scoundrels and vicious" are playing in Egypt today!
Nikos Retsos, retired professor, USA