ISLAMIST Mohammed Morsi was declared the winner Sunday in the first free presidential election in Egypt’s history, closing the tumultuous first phase of a democratic transition and opening a new struggle with the still-dominant military rulers who recently stripped the presidency of most of its powers.

    Morsi has pledged to restore security and improve the economy, in tatters since the anti-Mubarak uprising, to tackle fuel shortages and organize the cities’ traffic and garbage problems.

    The Cairo stock exchange closed up 7.5 percent Monday at 4,482.48 points, its largest single-day increase in more than a year, amid optimism that the official announcement of a president would help stabilize the country.    

    Although it is unclear what actual authority the president will have, Morsi walked through the initial rituals of assuming the office by meeting with the current acting head of state, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, and his prime minister, Kamal Ganzouri. Military officers and former top officials of the Mubarak government smiled as they escorted Morsi on his walk through the office — a breathtaking contrast to the days when their government had jailed him for his role as a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, which, founded in 1928, is the world’s most influential and one of the largest Islamist movements.

    Morsi also began the more difficult task of forming a new Cabinet. The challenge is finding qualified officials willing to work in a government of uncertain powers and duration, overshadowed by the military’s continued control of the budget and lawmaking, and in a potentially fractious Brotherhood-led coalition.

    As president-elect, Morsi formally resigned from the Brotherhood, but he continues to work closely with its leaders. He has pledged to name a prime minister from outside the group, include at least one Christian and one woman among his top deputies, and to share Cabinet posts with an alliance of groups and parties that have come together to try to force the military to roll back its power grab.

    Brotherhood officials had hoped that Morsi could announce at least some of his new Cabinet members Monday but said the list of names remained under discussion among their partners in the coalition. In the past, well-known figures from outside the Brotherhood have refused to run as its presidential candidate or serve in a Brotherhood-dominated government.

    A Brotherhood official familiar with Morsi’ efforts said that his shortlist included Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize-winning diplomat and a leading liberal. But whether any position had been offered could not be confirmed. Nor was it clear that he would accept any job, given that he is forming his own rival political party.

    Hundreds of Brotherhood members continued to camp out in Tahrir Square to continue their sit-in to demand that the military relinquish power, including reinstating the Brotherhood-led Parliament that the generals dissolved on the eve of the presidential election. Brotherhood officials have said they now expect Morsi to act as the chief negotiator for their coalition in its talks with the generals to resolve the impasse.   

    The country is deeply divided between supporters of the Brotherhood, liberals and leftists who also decided to back them as a way to stand up to the military, and other secular forces that fear the domination of the Brotherhood, and grew critical of it in the past year. The small margin of victory for Morsi also sets him for a strong opposition from supporters of election rival Ahmed Shafiq, viewed as a representative of the old regime.

    Naguib Sawiris, a Coptic Christian business tycoon who joined a liberal bloc in voicing opposition to the Brotherhood a day before the results were announced, said he expects the new president to send a reassuring message to Egypt’s Christian minority who represent around 10 percent of the population of 85 million.

    “There are fears of imposing an Islamic state ... where Christians don’t have same rights,” Sawiris said. Morsi “is required to prove the opposite. ... We don’t want speeches or promises but in the coming period, it is about taking action. ... He was not our choice but we are accepting it is a democratic choice.”

    Hamdeen Sabahi, a leftist presidential candidate who came in a surprising third place in the first round of elections, asked Morsi to live up to his pledges to form a national coalition government and appoint presidential aides from different groups “that express the largest national consensus.”

    Khaled Abdel-Hamid, a leading leftist politician, said Morsi must fight to get his powers back or he will lose any popular support he may have garnered. “If he fights to get his power back, we will support him. But if he doesn’t fight back, then he is settling for siding with the military,” he said.

    U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday congratulated Morsi but said the election that brought him to power was just a step towards true democracy.

    “We have heard some very positive statements so far,” Clinton said, noting Morsi’s pledge to honor international obligations, “which would, in our view, cover the peace treaty with Israel,” signed in 1979.    

    Morsi was born Aug. 20, 1951 in the Sharqia Governorate in northern Egypt. He received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in engineering from Cairo University in 1975 and 1978, respectively. He then received his Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Southern California in the United States in 1982. He was an assistant professor at California State University, Northridge, from 1982 to 1985. In 1985, he returned to Egypt to teach at Zagazig University. Two of his five children were born in California and are U.S. citizens by birth.

    Morsi was a lawmaker in the People’s Assembly of Egypt from 2000 to 2005 and a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood. He became Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), a political party, when it was founded by the Brotherhood in the wake of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. He stood as the FJP’s candidate for the May-June presidential election.

    Even after the two-month presidential campaign, Morsi remains an unfamiliar figure to most Egyptians. He was living and working in Los Angeles during the tumultuous period after Islamic militants assassinated Anwar Sadat and his successor, Mubarak, cracked down on the Brotherhood. Those who knew him in America say Morsi never appeared particularly political or religious.

    He became a leader in the Brotherhood after his return to Egypt, and he won election in 2000 to the Mubarak-dominated Parliament, and was chosen to lead the Muslim Brotherhood’s small bloc of 18 members, playing a key role in the group’s experiments in multiparty democracy and coalition-building. But as he rose in the leadership, he gained a reputation as a conservative enforcer, known for discouraging dissent.

    Five years ago, when the Brotherhood adopted a draft party platform that called for barring women and non-Muslims from the presidency, Morsi was a chief defender of the controversial planks, inside and outside the group. He argued that Islam required the president to be a male Muslim, in part because the head of state should promote the faith.

    Since Mubarak’s ouster, the Brotherhood has jettisoned those proposed restrictions from its platform, but during the campaign Morsi said that he personally still thought that only a male Muslim should hold the office.

    (SD-Agencies)