A survey by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project in March-April – well before Morsi emerged as a leading candidate in the presidential race, but after Islamist parties had won the majority of seats in the December parliamentary vote – found considerable support for Islam as a guiding force in the country’s future. However, the poll also revealed that not all Egyptians are equally comfortable with Islam’s expanded influence.

Already in early spring, there was broad acknowledgment of Islam’s rising profile, especially in the political arena. Roughly two-thirds (66%) of Egyptians saw Islam playing a big role in national politics, up 19 points from 2010, when just 47% said this was the case.

Most Egyptians appeared little troubled by Islam’s new status. When asked whether Saudi Arabia or the more secular Turkey would be a better model for Egypt in terms of religion’s role in government, a 61%-majority answered Saudi Arabia. Only 17% chose Turkey, while 22% claimed neither country was a suitable model.

Similarly, when asked about their country’s current political life, 64% expressed a positive view of Islam’s role in politics. (This included 40% who saw Islam playing a large role and who thought this was good, and 24% who saw Islam playing only a small role and who thought this was bad).

However, while majorities were attracted to the Saudi model and seemed to welcome Islam’s expanded influence, support for Islam’s role in politics was significantly lower than in 2010, when 82% had seen Islam as a positive force in Egypt’s political life. Meanwhile, the number of people who saw Islam playing a big role in politics and who said this was a bad thing was up 19 percentage points over the same two-year period (20% vs. 1%).

On the question of Egypt’s legal code, the spring survey also found broad support for Islam playing a major role: 60% said the country’s laws should strictly follow the teachings of the Quran, while 32% thought Egyptian laws should broadly reflect the values and principles of Islam. Only 6% of Egyptians embraced the secular view that laws should not be influenced by the Quran.

Yet, the survey revealed that not all Egyptians were equally enthusiastic about Islam shaping the country’s legal code. Younger people, in particular, were less likely to believe laws should strictly follow the Quran –about half (54%) expressed this view, compared with 68% among those 50 and older.

Better educated Egyptians, too, were not as eager to endorse Islam as the exclusive foundation of the country’s legal code. Only 55% of those with college degrees backed laws that strictly adhered to the Quran, compared with 68% of those with a primary education or less. Moreover, the number of Egyptians with secondary or college education who supported a strict Quranic basis for the country’s laws was 12 percentage points lower than in 2011.

It remains to be seen whether unease about Islam’s influence in Egypt’s legal and political life will deepen in the months ahead. Much will depend on the ability of president-elect Morsi and other Islamist politicians to convince the public that they are building a future for all citizens. In the meantime, the experiment of integrating Islam and democracy continues in Egypt.

Mursi picked up 13.2 million votes out of just over 26 million, giving him about 51 per cent of the vote while his competitor, Ahmed Shafiq, the final prime minister under Hosni Mubarak, received 12.3 million, according to Al Jazeera.  

Farouq Sultan, the head of the election commission, said the two candidates filed 456 complaints about the electoral process.

Egyptians took to the streets flooding Tahrir Square after Morsi’s victory was announced with his supporters waving Egyptian flags and chanting “down with military rule.”

Mohamed Mursi is expected to take his oath of office later this month, according to AFP. 

The delay in the announcement of the result of the presidential run-off, orginally to be announced on Thursday, has raised suspicions that the outcome of the election was being negotiated rather than counted.

As the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the Brotherhood clashed publicly over recent measures that consolidated the army’s power, sources say they had been engaged in talks privately, according to Al Jazeera.

Shortly after polls closed, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces announced a constitutional statement which grants the council legislative powers from the suspended parliament, control over the country’s budget and responsibility for drafting a new constitution. It also limited the new president of control over the army.

Supporters of the both candidates held rival rallies ahead of the announcement, which is due to be made later today.

The electoral commission overseeing the contest between Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi and former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq said it would announce the official winner at 3:00 pm (13:00 GMT) on Sunday, according to AFP.

The commission’s secretary general Hatem Bagato said: ‘Faruk Sultan, the head of the presidential election commission, will announce the results of the presidential election run-off on Sunday at 3:00pm (13:00 GMT),’ in a statement on Sunday.

The commission has been considering appeals from both candidates after the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Mohammed Mursi and former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq both claimed victory.

The delay in the announcement of the result of the presidential run-off, initially scheduled for Thursday, has raised suspicions that the outcome of the election is being negotiated rather than counted, according to Al Jazeera.

As the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the Brotherhood clashed publicly over recent measures that consolidated the army’s power, sources say they have been engaged in talks privately, according to Al Jazeera.

Shortly after polls closed, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces announced a constitutional statement which grants the council legislative powers from the suspended parliament, control over the country’s budget and responsibility for drafting a new constitution. It also limited the new president of control over the army.

The election has divided the nation amongst those who fear a return to the old regime under Shafiq from others who want to keep religion out of politics and fear the Brotherhood would take away personal freedoms.

Renewed political tensions have erupted in the country with both candidates claiming victory in the poll.

 The Muslim Brotherhood declared their candidate Mohammed Mursi had won the presidential vote in the early hours of Monday morning, but Mursi’s rival Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime minister, has also claimed a victory, with his campaign accusing the Brotherhood of fraud.

The commission said the announcement was postponed because a panel of judges must look into appeals of voting fraud filed by both campaigns, including lawyers for Shafik claiming fraud in 14 of Egypt’s 27 provinces, according to Al Jazeera.

The Election Commission did not say when it would announce the winner of the runoff between the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate, Mohammed Mursi, and Mubarak’s former prime minister, Ahmed Shafik.

“The (election) committee has decided to continue to examine the complaints, which involves looking at records and logs related to the electoral process, and this will require more time before announcing the final results,” it said in a statement on Wednesday, according to Al Arabiya.

Mursi’s lawyers have accused Shafik of buying votes and being involved in creating lists of registered voters to include soldiers, who are banned from voting, and names of the dead.

The generals last week gave themselves sweeping powers that effectively limit the powers of the next president and severely limit his capability for independent action.

A court order dissolved parliament, which dominated by the Brotherhood, and the military issued a constitutional declaration that makes the generals the nation’s legislators and gives them control of the budget, according to Al Jazeera. 

The generals will also oversee the process of writing Egypt’s new constitution.

“With 97% of polling stations reporting, Morsi ahead of shafiq by 1.2 million votes”,  Muslim Brotherhood said in a brief statement on facebook.

The latest statements from the Muslim Brotherhood candidate reveal Mursi has garnered 53 percent of the vote to 47 percent for his rival, ex-prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, with the ballots from nearly all of the country’s 13,000 polling stations counted, according to Al Arabiya.

Supporters chanted “down with military rule” after the results were announced while thousands rejoiced in Tahrir square to celebrate Mursi’s victory.

All of the results announced on Sunday night are unofficial and a final tally will not come out until later this week on June 21.

Representatives from Ahmed Shafiq’s campaign said that they would not accept the Brotherhood’s tally, and would wait for final results.

Turnout was lower than during the first round of voting in May, according to the secretary-general of the presidential election commission.

But shortly before the final result the generals who have run the country stirred controversy by issuing new rules in a constitutional declaration demonstrating the president’s powers that made clear real power remains with the army.

Those powers are quite limited: He may declare war, for example, only after seeking SCAF’s approval. The decree also reminds the president that he can call on the military to quell “unrest” inside the country, according to Al Jazeera.

SCAF dissolved parliament last week following a ruling by the supreme court, which found the legislature illegitimate. With the legislature gone, the generals reasserted control over the legislative process, and over the country’s budget.

The decree issued on Sunday promises new legislative elections, but not until a new constitution has been drafted. Before it was dissolved, the parliament appointed a 100-member assembly to draft that constitution; it will be allowed to continue its work, though if it runs into “obstacles”, SCAF will appoint a replacement, Al Jazeera rpeorted.

The Muslim Brotherhood was quick to condemn the decree, calling it “null and unconstitutional” in a brief statement on Twitter.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the country’s ruling military council, then announced that if any part of the parliament is illegal, then the entire body should be dissolved, according to Al Jazeera.

Egypt’s constitutional court also ruled against a law that would have disqualified Mubarak’s last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq from standing in the presidential poll runoff.

Rulings by Egypt’s constitutional court that dissolve the Islamist-dominated parliament and allow Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister to continue in the presidential race amount to “a complete coup,” a former presidential candidate said on Thursday, according to Al Arabiya.

Egyptians will head to the polls on June 16 as they cast a final vote for a president, with the hope of ridding themselves from more than a half century of status quo.

Competing in this weekend’s run-off is Ahmed Shafiq, 70, last prime minister appointed by Mubarak, and Mohammed Morsi, 60, a US-educated engineer and chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party.

The race has divided the nation between those who fear a return to the old regime under Ahmed Shafiq and those wanting Muslim brotherhood’s candidate, Mohamed Mursi.

This comes a day after Egypt’s justice ministry has issued a decree allowing military police and intelligence officers to arrest civilians suspected of crimes, bringing back some of the powers of the decades-old emergency law which was supposed to expire just two weeks ago. According to the ministry it will stay in effect at least until a new constitution is drafted.

An annex in Shafiq’s headquarters in Cairo went up in flames late on Monday, hours after election officials announced the official results of the first round of the presidential vote on Monday, according to Al Arabiya.

A police official said eight suspects were arrested near the headquarters, a villa located in the middle class Dokki neighborhood, AFP reported.  But there were no abrupt reports of injuries and firefighters said the fire was quickly put under control.

Earlier thousands of  protesters had gathered in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square to  protest the results of the first round presidential vote.

In announcing the results on Monday, Faruq Sultan, election commission chief, said that “No candidate had won an outright majority, so according to Article 40 of the presidential election law, there will be a runoff between Mohammed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq, ” Al Jazeera reported.

The results have split the nation, which now will have to choose between a Islamic conservative and a figure symbolizing the old hated Mubarak regime.

Candidate Hamdeen Sabahy came third with 20.7 percent, while moderate Islamist Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh follwed with 17.4 percent and  former foreign minister Amr Mussa was fifth with 11.1 percent.

Military rule is due to end when the military hands in power to the new president on July 1. Egyptians went to the polls on May 23 and 24 in the country’s first free presidential election made possible by the 2011 uprising. The two finalists of the first round are set to compete in a runoff on 16 and 17 June.

“We will present an appeal on behalf of candidate Hamdeen Sabahy … to the presidential electoral committee, citing a series of irregularities … that have affected the outcome of the first round,” lawyer Essam el-Islamboly told Reuters.

Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi is due to face-off against Shafik next month, after  Egyptian state television, preliminary results showed Sabahy in third place behind Shafiq and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi after this week’s first round. Only the top two go through to a run-off in June.

 votes were still being counted, while final results are not due before Tuesday.

Earlier thousands of Egyptians reacted heatedly to the results with hundreds taking to Tahrir Square to condemn the choice between the candidates.

Islamboly said the appeal, to be lodged on Sunday or Monday at the latest, would ask the electoral committee to suspend the election until the prosecutor-general checks a claim by a police officer that the Interior Ministry had illegally assigned 900,000 votes to Shafiq, Al Arabiya reported. 

He said Sabahy also wanted the election stopped until the constitutional court rules on the validity of an April decision by the electoral committee to disqualify Shafiq.

 The committee swiftly lifted its ban on Shafiq, who was deposed leader Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister, but referred a new law barring top Mubarak-era officials from the race to the constitutional court, according to Al Arabiya.

On Friday, the Brotherhood stated it was trying to create a coalition of forces to challenge Shafiq. 

“We call on all sincere political and national forces to unite to protect the revolution and to achieve the pledges we took before our great nation,” the Brotherhood said.

“The slogan now is: ‘the nation is in danger,’” Essam al-Erian, the deputy head of the Brotherhood’s political arm, told AFP.

Shafiq also called for broad support calling on his competitors by name to join him, as he vowed there would be no return to the old regime.

The Muslim Brotherhood said its candidate Mohammed Mursi leaded this week’s polls and would compete in next month’s second round on June 16 and 17 against Ahmed Shafiq, according to an unofficial Brotherhood tally of the vote count. Official results are due out on Tuesday.

According to political campaigns and semi-official results released by media, the Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi and former prime minister showed that Islamist Mursi got 24.9% of the votes, Shafiq got 24.5%, Al Arabiya reported.

The Muslim Brotherhood has stated that the “nation is in danger” if  Shafiq wins the the presidential vote
. “Morsi’s campaign calls upon all stakeholders in Egypt to join hands and do their best endeavors to save their revolution, along with the homeland and the people from a re-production of the old regime with all its repression, despotism and tyranny,” according to a statement by Muslim Brotherhood’s official website. 

The military council  has pledged to hand power to a new president by July 1

Official results are not to be announced before Tuesday,when the presidential election commission has promised to release the final tallies, but a senior judge involved in supervising the vote said Mursi and Shafiq were in the lead, based on figures from 90 percent of polling stations, according to Reuters.

A member of Shafiq’s campaign also said Mursi and Shafiq were in the lead, but that counting was not complete.

The election has divided Egyptians between those who oppose a  return to the Mubarak era and those who fear an Islamist domination of ruling institutions.

No outright winner is expected to emerge from the two-day vote, so a runoff is scheduled to take place for June 16-17 between the two top winners, according to AFP. Voters have 13 candidates to choose from. Among the contenders is former foreign minister and Arab League chief Amr Moussa, Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime minister, Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Mohamed Mursi faces competition from Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh, a former Muslim Brotherhood leader and centrist Islamist candidate.

The main issue for voters is the Egyptian economy, as the net president will take over a struglling and stagnant economy. Nearly half of Egyptians live at or below the poverty line, defined as $2 per day, and youth unemployment is 25 per cent, according to Al Jazeera.

The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), in power since Mubarak’s ouster, has called on Egyptians to turn out en masse to the polls, while warning against any “violation”, Al Arabiya reports. “The participation of citizens in the presidential election is the best guarantee of the transparency and security of the electoral process,” Mohammed al-Assar, a member of the SCAF said.

According to the electoral rules laid down by the Presidential Elections Commission, candidates may can no longer appear on television, give media interviews or conduct any public activity that may influence voters in the 23 to 24 May election.

Candidates have been campaigning across the country for weeks while 
a ban on campaign activities, laid down by the Presidential Election Commission came into force for 48 hours before the vote. The SCAF has vowed to hand power to civilian rule bu July 1, after a president is elected.

Meanwhile, Former US President Jimmy Carter, head of the Carter Center rights group, arrived in Cairo Sunday leading a delegation from Paris that will stay in Egypt for one week to monitor the election. Egypt has welcomed 22 observers from the Carter Center to join 80 other people coming from different countries to monitor the first election after Hosni Mubarak resigned from office amid the uprising last year, according to Egypt Independent. Several other international observers arrived Sunday coming from New York and European cities.