Quick and short thoughts on Mursi. Spent the afternoon waiting for the election committee to announce that Shafiq had won, listened to Faruoq's entire agonizing blow by blow account of every single disputed vote, and than had my jaw drop when the result was actually announced.
There are a few diaries already posted, nothing terribly interesting being said in the comments, besides the normal "At least it's not Mubarak" or "They'll oppress the women" or "Iran! Iran! Iran!" My personal opinions below the squiggle.
Is it good or bad? Or somewhere in between? Depends on who you are. Depends on what you want to happen in Egypt. But before you decide (and the poll in the first diary posted shows a bare majority would have voted for Shafiq), please consider a few things:
1. The Muslim Brotherhood candidate won. Not the Muslim Brotherhood. A significant portion of his support came from anti-NDP voters, who were voting against Shafiq as opposed to for Mursi. The run-off was just that, a run-off between two candidates, it was either Shafiq or Mursi, no other options (sucks to have a system like that, no?)
2. A Shafiq win would have meant that the revolution failed. Shafiq was Mubarak's last PM, and represented a continuation of the last regime. A Mursi win represents one of two options (and only time will tell which is the truth): either the Brotherhood's agenda won or the revolution lives. I would like to say it represents the second more than the first, but I can't tell you that with any certainty, only time will tell what happens.
3. The President at the moment has almost zero actual power, the Army is still completely in control, making the vote even more purely symbolic than it was already.
4. There will be a realignment of political interests, assuming that this election was truly the end of the NDP (old regime) elements. They will in the future be more natural allies for the secularist revolutionaries than the Brotherhood is. The secular/moderate revolutionaries had to partner with the Brotherhood, or accept a return to NDP rule. That won't be true in the next election.
So it is all puppies and unicorns now that Mursi won? No. But is the future bleak under a Mursi presidency? Not necessarily. Let's see who the Prime Minister is. If Baradei really is chosen (which is the predominant rumor I'm hearing) then I'd bet money on things getting better and the fears of the Brotherhood being overblown. Let's see how many women are in the cabinet. The second woman in the cabinet is the key (Hey, I'm dealing with reality on the ground here, two women is a good sign). If it's one it will just be a "woman's affairs" minister, and be meaningless. If the Brotherhood is serious about coalition government they will appoint a second woman, in charge of a ministry that has is gender neutral. How many Copts in the cabinet? These are the things that will be the first concrete signs of where things are going.
But until we see how he begins his term, it's incredibly short-sighted to suggest that a Mursi victory is a bad thing. Democracy is messy.