Spokesman for Egypt's liberal Free Egyptians Party Ahmed Khairy on Thursday called the likely runoff vote between Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohamed Morsi and Mubarak-era minister Ahmed Shafiq "the worst-case scenario."

Khairy described Morsi as an "Islamic fascist" and Shafiq as a "military fascist."

He went on to say that voting results – which have been marked by considerable diversity – showed that the Egyptian people were not dominated by a single ideology or a political current.

As for which candidate the party would throw its weight behind in the runoff vote, Khairy said this had not been decided yet.

"It will be very hard to endorse either of the candidates that made it to the runoff," he said. "The Free Egyptians Party, therefore, will either boycott the vote or leave the decision up to individual members, as had been the case in the first round of voting."

Khairy went on to say that first-round results had four major implications:

1-Most Egyptians do not support the notion of a religious state and the application of Islamic Law.

2-Egypt's two leading Islamist parties – the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist Nour Party – both garnered fewer votes than they did in last year's parliamentary polls.

3-Much of the public is sympathetic to the revolution, since some 40 per cent of the vote went to pro-revolution candidates Hamdeen Sabbahi and Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh.

4-Votes for Shafiq were not necessarily votes against the revolution. In many cases, people voted for Shafiq simply to punish the Muslim Brotherhood.

Finalresults collected by Ahram Online from 25 governorates throughout Egypt as of 4:30pm showed Morsi still in the lead, closely followed by Shafiq, while Sabbahi – who proved the dark horse of the race – fell back to third. Cairo and Giza results, meanwhile, which could be decisive, have yet to be tabulated.

1. Morsi 4,406,782 (26.48 per cent)

2. Shafiq 4,115,840 (24.74 per cent)

3. Sabbahi 3,329,519 (20.01 per cent)

4. Abul-Fotouh 2,959,937 (17.79 per cent)

5. Moussa 1,778,244 (10.69 per cent)

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/42882.aspx