Morsi confident of June presidential run-off

Mohammed Morsy speaking to aides Cairo – Akram Ali Final votes were still being counted, but unofficial results suggested that the top two out of 13 candidates were the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsy and Ahmed Shafiq, a former premier under ousted Hosni Mubarak. The results suggest that Morsy had won 25.3 per cent of the vote and Mr Shafiq 24 per cent, with Mr Sabahi at 22 per cent.
At a news conference later, Mr Morsy appealed to Egyptians to pursue the goals of the revolution, a day after his movement said the nation was "in danger."
He said he was confident the results of the June 16 and 17 run-off "will serve the revolution and the interests of the Egyptian people."
"As a president, I will be the president for all Egyptians. (My relationship) with the Brotherhood will be the same as all Egyptians," he said.
Muslim Brotherhood said it will call all the leading candidates who failed in the first round of the presidential elections to talk about the possibility of holding the post of vice-president and forming a coalition government.
Meanwhile, Shafiq said he wouldn't mind the idea of forming a government headed by Muslim Brotherhood, which is considered an attempt to get closer to the Muslim Brotherhood.
"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," Muslim Brotherhood said.
"The slogan now is: 'The nation is in danger'," Essam al-Erian, deputy head of the Brotherhood's political arm said.
The Salafist movement announced officially on Saturday that it supports the MB candidate Mohammed Morsy in the run-off against Ahmed Shafiq.
The former Secretary-General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, said Shafiq's success in the presidential elections will return Egypt to oppression and humiliation once more.
Moussa tweeted addressing Shafiq "please Shafiq don't spoil democracy and leave it to Egypt. A big mistake is to leave the past and ignore martyrs to run for presidency. It is impossible for Egypt's coming president to be the last prime minister in Mubarak's regime where martyrs and revolutionaries were killed at his time.
Judicial sources said the coming president is expected to receive at least one year imprisonment sentence in charge of violating "electoral silence". That's after the Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC) submitted reports to the Attorney General against the five presidential candidates, including Mohammed Morsy, Ahmed Shafiq, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, Hamdeen Sabahi and Amr Moussa.
Former US President Jimmy Carter, who is leading a delegation monitoring Egypt's first post-revolt presidential election, said on Saturday the process was "encouraging" despite unprecedented constraints.
"I would say that these (elections) have been encouraging to me," he told a news conference in Cairo, but added that his Carter Centre had "constraints placed on us as witnesses that have never been placed on us before."
In a statement, his Centre said its delegation and campaign observers were not allowed to see the collation of counted votes at regional stations, "undermining the overall transparency of the process."
"There is no way we can certify that the entire process was proper," Carter told journalists.
Carter said it had been a "difficult decision" for him to accept restrictions, which included a limit on the length of time monitors could stay in polling stations.
"I don't want to mislead anyone into thinking that this is a complete analysis of the entire process because we couldn't do that," he said.
In general, he told reporters, "there was no pattern reported... that showed that the procedure favoured a particular candidate," describing any violations as "haphazard."
In terms of irregularities, the Centre said it had observed instances in which the secrecy of the ballot was compromised in approximately one third of polling stations, due to the station layout, overcrowding or even voters themselves revealing their choices.
The Centre's report said other violations included failure to check voters fingers for the indelible ink indicating they had already voted, and the late opening and early closure of some polling stations.
But Carter characterised the violations as relatively minor.
"There were many violations and I think that every one is serious, but collectively they did not affect the basic integrity of the election," he said.
And he said aspects of the election had been impressive, including the "very well orchestrated" vote counting that took place at individual polling stations.
Former Congresswoman, Jane Harman, commented earlier on the electoral process saying: "We are very proud that the Egyptian government allowed us to visit many voting committees in Cairo, and permitted us to talk with judges, participants and voters as well as observers from political parties".
US Republican Congressman David Dreier said on Thursday, May 24 he's impressed by the democratic process in Egypt.
Dreier is visiting Egypt to observe the country’s historic presidential elections to replace the ousted leader Hosni Mubarak.
Speaking to the media outside a polling station in Cairo, Dreier said he saw improvements in the presidential elections compared to the parliamentary elections. The parliamentary elections took place in three stages during December and January.