Muslim Brotherhood Claims Victory

Via CNN:  Muslim Brotherhood claims victory in Egyptian presidential vote

With several million votes still to be counted, the state-run Al-Ahram news website around 4:15 a.m. Monday (10:15 p.m. Sunday ET ) showed the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi leading with about 5,648,000 votes compared with about 4,705,000 for opponent Ahmed Shafik, who served as Egypt’s last prime minister in the waning days of Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

Yet the Islamist group, citing what it said were all-but-complete official numbers released to its representatives at polling stations nationwide, asserted that Morsi had won by capturing 52.5% of the overall vote.

The official vote count was scheduled to be finished at some point Monday, with finals results to be announced Thursday.

This seems like a premature claim of victory (not to mention one that may prove, even if true, to be pyrrhic).

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Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    Premature? Maybe not so much as my rough count using is that 5 million and change totals 54.5% of the total counted to the moment. Depends on how many millions remain to be counted and from where, maybe.

    Pryyhic on the other hand–Indeed!

  2. G.A. says:

    Well the good thing is that I know what pyrrhic means now and that it exists as a word.

  3. Dave Schuler says:

    Your immediately previous post lends a certain credibility to the result.