In late May 2012, Egypt's first round of presidential elections saw candidate Ahmad Shafiq, who in 2011 served as the last prime minister under Hosni Mubarak, moving on to the second round, sparking widespread controversy in the country. Egypt's Salafi-jihadis pointed to the election results as vindication of their ideology, which rejects any political system based on manmade law and advocates the shari'a as the sole source of authority. In their polemic with Egypt's mainstream Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), who have embraced political participation since the Egyptian revolution, the Salafi-jihadi movement claimed that Shafiq's success only proved that the revolution had failed to uproot the old secular regime, which was still alive and well. The jihadis chastised those Salafis who had chosen to participate in the secular political system, calling it sinful and saying that they had forsaken their raison d'être – establishing an Islamic state.
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