Tagged: Egypt

The runoff vote for Egypt's next president will pit the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate against the last prime minister to serve under Hosni Mubarak, according to full official results released Monday by the election commission.

Commission chief Farouq Sultan told a news conference that the Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force commander and a longtime friend of the ousted leader, were the top two finishers in the first round of voting held on May 23-24.

In Egypt, Ahmed Shafiq and the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohammed Morsi, will face each other in a runoff election next month. David Greene talks with NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson about what these results might mean for Egypt's future.

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon. This week in Egypt, a nation that has been ruled for thousands of years by pharaohs, colonial rulers, military regimes and dictators held its first free election for a national leader. Egyptians went to the polls on Wednesday and Thursday, and though the official results are not yet in, the election is certainly a milestone in the democratic awakening known as the Arab Spring. Here's a selection of voices from Cairo in the week that Egypt voted.