Morsi wins Egyptian presidency

Cairo: Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood party won the presidential election here Sunday by defeating his rival Ahmed Shafiq, ex-premier and a senior leader of Hosni Mubarak era, by around one million votes.

Head of Egypt's Higher Presidential Election Commission (HPEC) Farouq Sultan announced in the afternoon about Morsi winning the Egyptian presidency, Xinhua reported.

Morsi, chairman of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, received about 52 percent votes in the run-off round while his opponent Shafiq got about 48 percent.

According to the Commission, Morsi won about 13 million votes, while Shafiq got about 12 million. The eligible voters were 51 million while the turnout was around 52 percent, or 26.3 million, said Sultan, adding that there were 834,252 invalid votes.

The results in 13 sub-committees were cancelled after the commission reviewed the results over the submitted appeals.

Just as the news of Morsi's victory became known, members of his campaign observed one-minute of silence to mourn the deaths during last year's turmoil.

Also, tens of thousands of Morsi's supporters celebrated and burst fireworks at the Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo after learning about Morsi's victory.

With Sunday's win, Morsi's membership in the Muslim Brotherhood movement also ended, affirming the pledge for the movement that Morsi will be the president for all Egyptians.

Egypt held its historical presidential election May 23-24. Morsi and Shafiq, who were the top two candidates in the first round, entered the run-off which kicked off June 1.

Meanwhile, Chief of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) Hussein Tantawi and Prime Minister Kamal el-Ganzouri have both congratulated the winner and wished for a prosperous Egypt.

The new president will assume office without a new constitution and parliament. The SCAF reportedly will issue a supplementary constitutional declaration to make arrangements for the coming period.

The SCAF, which took over power in February 2011, has affirmed that they will hand over power to the new president before June-end.