“That leaves, of course, the MB's Dr. Mohammed Morsi, head of the FJP. Despite his incredibly high organizational profile and political credentials, Morsi seems to have eluded becoming the public figure he could have become by now. This engineering professor, who completed his PhD in the States, was a Brotherhood MP in 2000 and the speaker for the MB block in Parliament then, might have not immediately come to mind several weeks ago as a front-line candidate. But Morsi, who entered the elections as a backup candidate for Khairat Al-Shater, will nevertheless have the support of the entire MB and FJP membership bases and organizational structures, which have incomparable effectiveness and efficiency as demonstrated during the parliamentary elections (one friend, working as an observer for a competing campaign, spoke at length to me in bewilderment of the "complex" food-delivery and member-swapping-and-resting strategies during the parliamentary elections). It is also widely expected, and perhaps most critical to highlight, that much of the aligned and non-aligned votes that went to the FJP and Al-Nour in parliament would also go to Morsi, who will now have a bit over a month to try and become more of a household name. At this moment, this makes Morsi possibly the strongest candidate, quite ironically. Some will disagree, naturally.”

This definitely would explain how Morsi made it to the second round of Egypt’s presidential elections to run against Ahmed Shafiq, but does it explain if that is how he really won the presidency? This is disputed, as the initial results were postponed twice before being announced officially. The first sign of trouble ahead appeared when the High Constitutional Court (HCC) dissolved the lower house of parliament, the people assembly under the basis of it being unconstitutional. Then the Security Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) addendum to the constitution only some hours after the polling closed for the second round of presidential elections. In the waking hours of the following morning, Morsi declare himself as the winner of Egypt’s presidential elections with 13.2 million or 51.7% of the vote. He even delivered his victory speech repeatedly making reference to the martyrs of the January 25th Revolution. In return, his contender Ahmed Shafiq similarly claimed himself as the winner of the presidential elections. Officially the election results were to be announced on June 21, only to be pushed back to potentially June 23 or June 24. Early on, Ahram Online has announced that Shafiq will the next president, CNN used the same information as their backing.

During the wait from June 21st onwards, it became clear that the SCAF was doing a dealing of some sort with the candidates. When Morsi was announced the winner, it became clear the Ikhwan had sided with the SCAF over the Egyptian people. While Egyptians celebrate the coming of their new president, they should not forget that things have not really changed in Egypt.

“It’s the worst moment of my life. I don’t want to have such a president, he is nothing to me!” said Mohamed, a college student. Many liberals and Coptic Christians share this view due to his religious views. Regardless of his background of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and Freedom and Justice Party, we must look beyond that and allow the man to show us what he’s got – give him a chance.

However, his finalized victory address on Sunday night was not really helpful with its references to Islam, thank yous, and reiterating how he will not forget specific sects of the Egyptian people. Some saw it as counterproductive, “What are their policies? What did Morsi promise to accomplish as his priorities?” someone tweeted to me. The Muslim Brotherhood has reiterated their policies repeatedly while he was running, but maybe it is better not to instill false hope – which president has entirely kept their promises?

Nevertheless, the SCAF which had promised to hand over some power to the president on June 30th, will still be calling the shots in Egyptian politics, albeit having its first presidential election of a president -- a civilian one -- as CNN put, “In 7,000 years”.

*Photo Credit: Jonathan Rashad