Egypt's Mohamed Morsi wins presidency

Mohamed Morsi of Muslim Brotherhood has defeated his rival Ahmed Shafiq to become Egypt's first freely-elected president.

Egypt's new president Mohamed Morsi delivers a speech.[ Xinhua]

Morsi, chairman of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, got 51.73 percent of votes in the run-off, Farouq Sultan, Chairman of the Egyptian Higher Presidential Election Commission ( HPEC), announced on Sunday.

According to the commission, Morsi won 13.23 million votes, while Shafiq got 12.35 million. The eligible voters were 51 million, while the turnout was 51.8 percent, or 26.3 million, said Sultan.

Invalid votes were 834,252, he said, adding that the results in 13 sub-committees were cancelled after the commission reviewed the results over the submitted appeals.

The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the caretaker government have congratulated Morsi on his victory.

Upon hearing the news of Morsi's victory, tens of thousands of his supporters celebrated and fired fireworks in the Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo.

Egypt held its historical presidential election on May 23-24. Morsi and Shafiq, who were the top two candidates in the first round, entered the run-off which kicked off on June 16.

Sultan added that the election commission worked in very tense environment, and they faced challenges, pressures and even accusations since they started their mission, but they stick to their work and announced the integrity of the Egyptian judiciary.

The run-off came just two days after the Supreme Constitutional Court voided the Islamists-dominated People's Assembly (lower house of parliament) as the parliament election law was unconstitutional. The same court also ruled the political isolation law targeting former regime officials unconstitutional, ending the debate over Shafiq's qualification.

The new president will assume office without a new constitution and parliament. The SCAF reportedly will issue a supplementary constitutional declaration to make arrangements for the coming period.

The SCAF, which took over power in February 2011, has affirmed that they will hand over power to the new president before the end of June.