Sporadic violence, protests break out in election’s wake

Two bombs exploded in Cairo and a prosecutor’s car was set ablaze on Friday, as sporadic acts of violence broke out across the country two days after the polls closed in the presidential election.

The state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram reported that two improvised bombs went off in Cairo’s Mansheyet Nasser area on Friday morning.

A 19-year-old student at Al-Azhar University’s Faculty of Jurisdiction and Law, who Al-Ahram identified as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, had allegedly strapped the explosive devices to his motorbike.

When they detonated, the student lost consciousness, according to the privately owned newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm (AMAY). He was taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition with severe shrapnel wounds. The paper reported that he died shortly thereafter.

Also on Friday, unknown assailants allegedly set a prosecutor’s car on fire in the Delta city of Mahalla, reported the state-owned Middle East News Agency (MENA).

Statements from the Ministry of Interior were unclear as to whether it was a politically motivated attack.

Ministry of Interior personnel have increasingly been the targets of often deadly violent crimes in the aftermath of Brotherhood-affiliated President Mohamed Morsi’s fall from power.

Elsewhere in the country, masked gunmen opened fired on the Sheikh Zuwayed police station in Sinai, MENA reported. Policemen from the station responded with heavy fire, and the assailants fled. No injuries were reported. 

As for the Brotherhood, the banned organization took to the Internet on Friday to call for protests against the results of the presidential election.

Protesters identified as Brotherhood supporters in the Matereya and Maasara areas east of Cairo reportedly clashed with security forces after they chanted slogans against the Armed Forces and police, according to Al-Ahram.

The newspaper also reported that a Brotherhood-affiliated march in Alexandria was broken up by police, who arrested 25 demonstrators wielding anti-military signs.

Egypt is bracing for a new government as unofficial vote counts indicate that former military commander Abdel Fattah al-Sisi dominated the presidential polls, winning an estimated 93 percent of the vote.

Morsi had appointed Sisi as defense minister shortly after entering the executive office, only to be ousted by the army chief’s military decree on July 3, 2013.