Following the end of voting on Sunday, the campaigns of both Ahmed Shafiq and Mohamed Morsi, as well as media outlets such Al Ahram Online, the OnTV channel and the Al Jazeera channel all reported varied figures on the percentage of votes attributed to each candidate. Both Al Ahram Online and Al Jazeera put Morsi ahead of Shafiq late Sunday night.
Many Egyptians lost sleep watching the numbers reported during the night. By 4 am. The Mulsim Brotherhood candidate’s campaign claimed 52.5% for Morsi from “confirmed estimates based on the campaign’s monitoring activities” while Shafiq’s campaign released a press release stating that he had claimed a victory with 51.5 to 52 percent of the votes.
The Morsi campaign’s official twitter account messaged, “MORSI WINS!!” at 5:00 am on Monday morning. Following the news, celebrations were reported at Morsi’s headquarters and crowds gathered in Tahrir Square to celebrate the unofficial victory.
Shafiq’s campaign rejected the MB results in their press release providing a list of accusations regarding Morsi’s campaign that include accusing Morsi, referred to in the press release as the second party, and the Muslim Brotherhood of buying and forging votes, terrorizing voters who wanted to vote from Shafiq and even preventing them from voting in some cases. The release insisted that the counting was not over yet and that Morsi was trying to claim the seat of the presidency to claim fraud or wrongdoing if Shafiq should be announced the victor.
