Egypt:Top Contenders Courting Defeated Candidates Ahead of Run-off

Cairo--Egypt’s presumed candidates in the second round of the presidential elections have started courting defeated candidates in the first round of the polls, with promises of restoring back the revolution.

Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party Mohammed Mursi and Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force commander, who served briefly as prime minister during the February 2011 protests, are the only top two candidates to face off in the deciding vote on June 16 and 17.

State television reported Mursi leading with 26.4 percent against Shafiq’s 23 percent in the preliminary results of last Tuesday’s first ever presidential election since the ousting of former leader Hosni Mubarak in the famous Arab spring 15 months ago.

Hamdeen Sabahy, a secular leftist came a close third with 21.5 percent, followed by independent Islamist Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh to close four major front runners in the vote that had attracted 13 candidates, pitting Islamists against secularists, and revolutionaries against the former Mubarak-era ministers.

The Brotherhood party has invited both Sabahy and Fotouh who became third and fourth respectively for discussion of a coalition government saying that parties that backed anti-Mubarak revolt must unite “so that the revolution is not stolen from us” by those “determined efforts to recreate the old regime.”

But both candidates have made it clear on turning down the offer, with Fotouh, who once appeared to support the Brotherhood saying he would not bargain with the group over government positions.

The choice between Mursi and Shafiq, representing forces that have wrestled for the past six decades, has dismayed many Egyptians who voted for candidates offering a middle ground.

Many fear that a victory for the 70-year-old Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime minister, would dwindle hopes for change inspired by the revolution, while a win for Mursi would see domination of Islamic rule, a threat seen against Egypt’s minority Christians and secular liberals.

The interim military rulers who took over power after Mubarak stepped down have assured of a fair vote and peaceful transition of power to the elected president. But the military is keen to have its privileges and influences preferably in the new constitution, which has been held up by political wrangles, seen to challenge the next president not knowing his powers or those of parliament and government.

Egypt has seen turbulent moments including violent protests and a dwindling economy with flight of foreign investment since Mubarak’s dramatic exit from power in February last year.

Kinshasa, DR Congo

Rwanda Backing Congolese Army Mutineers

Rwanda has been accused of fuelling and supporting a recent rebellion involving mutineer soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a UN report.

An internal UN report cites testimonies of eleven defected Congolese army soldiers who are Rwandan nationals, trained in Rwanda under the pretext of joining the Rwandan military.

According to the UN report, some of the men recruited as early as February this year into the Congolese army had received training in Rwanda where they were given weapons and were then sent into DR Congo.

Most rebel groups have been integrated into the Congolese army under the 2009 peace deal that ended the country’s worst conflict that claimed over a million lives in fighting and displaced several others.

Recent heavy fighting in the eastern region of DR Congo between government forces and mutineer soldiers led by former rebel leader General Bosco Ntaganda, has seen tens of thousands of native civilians flee the area.

Gen Ntaganda and a band of senior officers from his formerly National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) rebel group mutinied from their national army units in north and south Kivu in April citing long complaining of a lack of pay, poor food and difficulties in winning promotions.

They have been since been holed up in the Virunga National park near the Rwandan border, where they have been engaged in heavy fighting with government forces around the park and nearby towns, rendering the people there to flee.

Ntaganda nicknamed the “Terminator” has been indicted by The Hague-based International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including conscription of child soldiers during his rebellion days.

So far there has been no response from Rwandan government over the claims by the report, which if true, would suggest Rwanda was preparing for conflict before the mutiny by the renegade officers.