CAIRO: Egyptians are choosing between a conservative Islamist and Hosni Mubarak’s ex-prime minister in a second day of a presidential runoff that has been overshadowed by the domination of the country’s military.
Going head-to-head in the runoff are Ahmed Shafiq, a longtime friend and self-confessed admirer of Mubarak, and Mohammed Morsi of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood.
The Saturday-Sunday vote followed a week of political drama in which the military announced de facto martial rule and judges appointed by Mubarak before his ouster dissolved the freely elected, Islamist-dominated parliament.
The generals who took over from Mubarak 16 months ago are expected this week to spell out the powers of the new president and appoint a 100-member panel to draft a new constitution.
No violence were reported so far except for a dispute between street vendors in Cairo that turned into a gunfight in the early hours of Sunday, according to local media reports, with conflicting casualty tolls that could not be immediately confirmed.
The website of the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper reported that the army and police had deployed to contain the confrontation in the Cairo district of Sayyeda Aisha on Sunday, the last day of voting in Egypt’s presidential election.
The Al-Ahram report did not give a casualty figure.
But the website of the independent Al-Youm Al-Sabie newspaper said two people had been killed and 15 wounded.
Al-Shorouk, another independent newspaper, said on its website the violence had claimed eight lives. The news reports began to filter out around 2 a.m. and officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Both presidential candidates have promised to restore law and order, which Egyptians complain has been lax since Mubarak’s rule was brought to an end by a mass uprising last year.
