BICOM

A mob set fire to the campaign headquarters of one of the two Egyptian presidential politicians facing each other in a run-off that will decide the country’s next leader.

The attack on Ahmed Shafiq’s office came just hours after the country’s election commission announced that he would face the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate, Mohammed Morsi, in a 16-17 June run-off.

In an upscale neighbourhood of Cairo, young men used bricks to smash the windows of Shafiq’s headquarters, tossing out campaign signs and tearing up his posters. Then they set fire to the building. There were no reports of injuries. Police arrested eight people.

Shafiq’s campaign blamed supporters of leftist candidate Hamdeen Sabahi, who came in third place, and backers of another losing candidate, Khaled Ali, who was protesting over the election results on Monday evening in Tahrir Square, the centre of last year’s uprising.

Shafiq, who was former president Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister, has presented himself as a figure who can restore calm to a country wracked by 15 months of sometimes-violent protests and deterioration in internal security. He has expressed a zero-tolerance attitude toward protests, reflecting his background in the military and in the former regime.

For many in Egypt the Morsi-Shafiq runoff is a polarising contest that mirrors the conflict between Mubarak, himself a career air force officer like Shafiq, and the Islamists he jailed and tortured during his years in power. However, it sidelines the mostly young, secular activists who led the popular uprising last year.