Secret US poll projects 70 pc lead for Muslim presidential candidate Morsi DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 13, 2012

The Obama administration is girding up for the shock of Egypt becoming the first Arab country, and the most populous, to be ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood. The last of three secret polls US intelligence conducted in Egypt assigned the MB contender Muhammad Morsi a 70 percent win of the presidential election runoff, Saturday-Sunday, June 16-17, against former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiqs 30 percent, according to DEBKAfiles exclusive sources. Although such polls often miss the mark, the US, Israel and the Middle East appear to be facing this fast-approaching prospect. Egypts transitional government the Supreme Military Council (SCAF) has publicly pledged to transfer power to civilian control on July 1 whomsoever wins the election. There are signs of preparations for this game-changer in Washington, though not in Jerusalem unless they are taking place in secret although Israels strategic and regional situation faces radical change. At the same time, as high-placed American sources monitoring events in Egypt point out, the incoming presidents powers are still undefined and the SCAF may hold off transferring authority until they are. Defining the extent of presidential authority is one of the tasks up to the 100-member Egyptian Constitutional Assembly, which only began work Wednesday, June 13. It is impossible to predict the content of its final document, although the body has a Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi Nour majority. Furthermore, a judicial body, Egypts Supreme Constitutional Court, is due to hand down critical rulings Thursday, June 14, just two days before the presidential election They promise major repercussions for voting patterns and the status of the two contenders and their parties. One SCC recommendation is to abolish as unconstitutional the law passed by the Islamist-dominated parliament in April barring senior Mubarak-era officials (such as Ahmed Shafiq) from running for president. The SCC may also throw out the electoral laws under which The Brotherhood and the

Salafist party gained 75 percent of seats in parliament, order it its dissollution and call a new general election. These rulings could produce a Brotherhood president without constitutional powers or parliamentary backing. In these circumstances, Muhammad Morsi would be too weak to govern, or even become a figurehead, and the SCAF would stay in power. The Muslim Brotherhoods violent campaign tactics have meanwhile had some unforeseen consequences and created unexpected bedfellows. Gangs of Islamist thugs have gone about burning Shafiqs campaign branches, breaking up his public rallies and attacking the homes of his supporters and families They turn up with loudspeaker cars on the fringes of pro-Shafiq rallies and shout slogans saying he should be hanged after the ousted ruler Hosni Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison for lesser crimes. Those tactics have absurdly sent some of the democratic and liberal forces which staged the Tahir Square revolution for toppling Mubarak rallying behind his last prime minister and adherent, as the lesser evil. However, those tactics have a more sinister side : DEBKAfiles intelligence sources report that local gangs of Islamist thugs are linking up into a nationwide organization, for which the Brotherhood is setting up regional headquarters. In Cairo this week, a central headquarters began coordinating their activities with a fleet of vehicles ferrying squads between districts for creating mayhem. The Brotherhoods gangs are acquiring a hierarchical structure resembling the embryonic paramilitary militias which surfaced in the early years of Irans Shiite revolution in the late 1970s and early 1980s and evolved into Irans Revolutionary Guards Corps. This manifestation will not disappear after elections are over but will be there to stay as part of Egypts political and street landscape, whoever is elected president. That is further cause for trepidation in the US and Israel.