MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By AYA BATRAWY, Associated Press – “CAIRO (AP) — In the small southern Egyptian town of Azaziya, where almost all the residents are Christians, few doubt that nearly everyone who can is going to vote for Ahmed Shafiq, ousted leader Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister and his longtime friend, in this weekend’s presidential election.

Shafiq’s candidacy has dismayed many Egyptians who believe the Mubarak-era veteran will preserve the old regime’s authoritarianism. But even if some Christians share those reservations, they view his opponent in the race as far worse: Mohammed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt’s Christian minority fears will turn the country into an Islamic state.

‘Our goal is a civil state. We don’t see anyone else who can protect this except for him,’ Montaser Qalbek, the son of Azaziya’s town leader, said of Shafiq.

In last month’s first round of the presidential election, which narrowed the field from 13 candidates to two, Shafiq received nearly all of the 4,500 votes cast in Azaziya, a town in the southern province of Assiut. Qalbek said he expects more than twice that number to turn out for the Saturday-Sunday run-off and that they will again overwhelmingly back Shafiq.

That determination is likely to be mirrored across the Christian community, which makes up 10 percent of Egypt’s population of 85 million. Many Christians see the vote as a clear-cut choice between a secular state and one in which an Islamist agenda slowly takes root. Leaders of the Orthodox Coptic Church, to which most Egyptian Christians belong, and Christian activists have been working hard to get the community to the polls, said Yousef Sidhom, editor of the weekly Watani newspaper and a Coptic Church official.” Read more.

Flashback: ‘Conquest Is Coming’: Muslim Brotherhood Candidate in Egypt Says Christians Must Convert To Islam, Pay ‘Jizya’, Or Leave – “According to the popular Egyptian website, El Bashayer, Muhammad Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate, just declared that he will ‘achieve the Islamic conquest (fath) of Egypt for the second time, and make all Christians convert to Islam, or else pay the jizya,’ the additional Islamic tax, or financial tribute, required of non-Muslims, or financial tribute… ‘They need to know that conquest is coming, and Egypt will be Islamic, and that they must pay jizya or emigrate.’” Read more.

Flashback: Egyptian Islamists Threaten Insurgency Should Secularists Win Egyptian Presidential Election – “On May 19, Islamic Jihad Organization member Shaykh Usamah Qasim took to the pages of Al-Misri al-Yawm to warn that Islamists would not tolerate a victory by any of the non-Islamist candidates. According to a translation provided by the Open Source Center: ‘… The victory of former prime minister Ahmad Shafiq or former Arab League chief Amr Musa in the coming presidential elections would lead some Islamic and non-Islamic groups to respond with ‘armed action.’ ‘Thus, the fate of any of them who reaches the presidency will be like that of former President Anwar al-Sadat, who was assassinated …’” Read more.