No easy transition ahead for Egypt's new president
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E-mail Xinhua, June 25, 2012
After days of waiting in anxiety, Egyptians on Sunday knew the final winner of the presidential election is Mohamed Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood, who defeated ex-premier Ahmed Shafiq with 51.7 percent of the votes.
The democratically elected Islamist became the fifth president of Egypt, and the first one without military background. The advent of the new president, after the fall of ex-president Hosni Mubarak last year, marked a significant step forward in Egypt's political transition, which has been full of protests, strikes and power wrangling between different political forces.
As the Islamists-dominiated People's Assembly (lower house of parliament) was recently dissolved by the Supreme Constitutional Court, the new presidency has been the only "valuable fruit" of democracy during the past 16 months.
However, the results highlighted drastically different opinions among Egyptian people. Nearly half of voters did not support Morsi, or the Brotherhood as a group. Many fear the group may change the country into an Islamic one. Others worry the victory of Shafiq would mean a return to the former regime.
Disagreements among political groups exist, too. Lack of mutual trust on key political issues featured relationships between Islamists and secularists, political powers and the ruling military council, civilians and political parties.
On the make-up of the constitutional assembly, Islamists' attempt to dominate the body angered secular parties. As a result, the first assembly was dissolved in April. The new assembly has not officially started their drafting of the new constitution.
Over the past ten days, the Brotherhood has been rejecting the dissolution of parliament and the supplementary constitutional declaration in which military rulers retook legislative powers while setting limits on presidential powers.
Islamists have recently organized daily mass protests in Cairo' s Tahrir Square and many other cities. However, the ruling military council has not retreated, insisting on the necessity of the document and the respect for judicial verdicts.
Under the current circumstances, it is urgent that all sides reach a national reconciliation on the transitional process as soon as possible so as to complete all the outstanding tough tasks -- the drafting of a new constitution and re-election of the parliament.
Citizens have been frustrated by frequent protests, worsening security, economic slowdown, rise of commodity prices and high unemployment since the fall of Mubarak.
The new president should try to restore security and order to create a good environment for development, as citizens feel they have not realized their basic goals of overthrowing the Mubarak regime.
Despite the election of the new president, there are still uncertainties ahead for Egypt. This is the first time for the Brotherhood to grab the presidency in its 84 years of history. Having chosen to offer the Brotherhood a historical political chance, people have to wait for some time to see what the new president can offer to the country.
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