Deposed President Hosni Mubarak remains on life support at Maadi military hospital as Egypt's electoral commission prepares to announce his successor Thursday.
Both Mohamed Mursi, the candidate representing the Muslim Brotherhood, outlawed for years by Mubarak's government, and Ahmed Shafiq, the candidate who was Mubarak's former prime minister, have each declared victory in the close race.
Egypt's electoral commission is preparing to announce the winner of the nation's first presidential run-off elections since the end of former President Hosni Mubarak's regime. But Mubarak is unaware of any of it at this point, as he slowly slips farther away from life.
The deposed president, who was toppled from power during the January 25 Tahrir Square Revolution in 2011, suffered a stroke Tuesday in the hospital at Cairo's Tora Prison. Mubarak's heart had been restarted several times since his arrival at the prison on June 2, where he suffered high blood pressure and deep depression as well.
On Tuesday, his heart failed once more, but was restarted by doctors using a defibrillator. However, the 84-year-old former president suffered a stroke shortly after, and was rushed to the Maadi military hospital where he was immediately placed on life support.
The former president was incarcerated after being convicted in connection with the deaths of some 825 protesters during the violent demonstrations that were part of the region wide Arab Spring uprisings that have brought down several other Arab regimes over the past year as well.
The official Egyptian Middle East News Agency (MENA) initially quoted a doctor at the military hospital to which he was brought following the stroke that Mubarak was declared “clinically dead” upon his arrival.
But a government security official subsequently corrected the report, telling reporters the former president was not dead and had been placed on life support. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to address the media.