Mohamed Abd El Ghany / Reuters

Supporters of presidential candidate and Egypt's former vice president Omar Suleiman, cheer while carrying banners bearing images of him, as Suleiman presented his documents to become a presidential candidate to the Higher Presidential Elections Commission (HPEC) headquarters in Cairo April 8, 2012.

CAIRO – The battle lines have been drawn in Egypt’s presidential election between two of the major candidates, Muslim Brotherhood Khairat Al-Shater and former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman. 

In his first shot across the bow, financier Al-Shater announced that election fraud would be grounds for a second revolution, a thinly veiled suggestion that a Suleiman victory would imply fraud and that the Muslim Brotherhood would wield their vast power to fill Tahrir Square and topple him.

But it’s not only the Muslim Brotherhood that is opposed to the former confidant of toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak. Many secular parties and candidates also are angry about Suleiman’s candidacy.

Suleiman, briefly a vice president during Mubarak’s last days in office, was the director of the intelligence apparatus that aided in suppressing the opposition from 1993 until the start of the revolution in January 2011. He is widely believed to have the backing of the military, which still wields considerable power.

"Suleiman's Victory is Zero Hour for Civil War," warned a dramatic headline recently on the independent Wafd newspaper.

Many feel the revolution will have failed should the former spymaster triumph. "The sacrifices of the past year and a half will have been in vain," lamented another independent newspaper.

Others have criticized what they consider his past failures. "You … aided Israel, are you coming back to lose it again!?" chided another Wafd headline, referring to his perceived support of the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries.

Amr Abdallah Dalsh / Reuters

People walk past a poster of presidential candidate and Egypt's former Vice President Omar Suleiman with the Star of David on his face, in Cairo on Thursday. The poster, which was created by the Egyptian Islamic Labour Party, reads,

On Thursday, the Muslim Brotherhood took their battle with Suleiman to the halls of parliament and won – sort of. Egypt’s parliament passed a bill that bars senior figures from Mubarak’s regime from competing in elections for the next 10 years, a move specifically intended to stop Suleiman from running in the next election.

However, the law will only come into effect if the military council that took over from Mubarak last year ratifies it, which is unlikely to happen before the election commission issues its final list of presidential candidates later this month. 

In light of this, the Muslim Brotherhood will take their case to the street Friday with more than 40 other revolutionary movements, calling for a million people to fill Cairo’s Tahrir Square under the slogan "Protecting the Revolution."

Security candidate
None of this would matter, of course, if the secretive ex-spy chief did not have demonstrable support.  However, he had no difficulty in raising more than three times the 30,000 signatures needed in order to qualify as a candidate. 

He also has buzz.  In the past week, you could hear little else discussed in shops, restaurants and taxis.  With rare exception, people I have asked on the subway, in taxis and on the street support him.

Why?

"When I drive my taxi these days, anybody can hassle me,” said one disgruntled cabbie. “I need security and he is the only one who can provide it."

Law and order is the first concern on many minds.  The lack of police presence and escape of hardened criminals since the revolution has led to a crime spree in what was once an oasis of safety.  Now, previously unknown threats such as kidnapping, carjacking and house invasions have become commonplace.  Many feel that Suleiman, relic of the old regime though he is, can restore security and with it tourism and investment.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Stringer/Egypt / Reuters

Women holding umbrellas stand in line during rain under an election poster by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood "The Freedom and Justice Party'" outside a polling station as they wait to cast their votes during parliamentary elections in Alexandria on Monday.

CAIRO – The Muslim Brotherhood has already started coloring outside the lines in order to win a majority in Egypt’s parliamentary elections. 

The organization, which gave its political branch the more ambiguous title, The Party of Freedom and Justice (FJP), is expected to win 40 percent of the seats in the lower house of parliament, according to analysts estimates.  Official results from the first round of voting will be announced Thursday.

Based on our own observations at polling stations across Cairo and anecdotal evidence, they seem to have won support at the polls by bending the rules in their favor.

Free food and cheap meat
In Cairo’s Saida Zeinab neighborhood, at one of the busiest polling centers in the city, we saw a party member and two other supporters of an independent candidate passing out leaflets to voters waiting in long lines to cast their ballots – in clear violation of election laws. Soldiers who were on site for crowd control, did nothing to stop them. At the same spot, a tech-savvy FJP member sat on a bench, laptop in hand, to conduct exit polls. At other polling stations, they provided polling information to baffled voters. 
 
In a more economically disadvantaged part of Cairo known as “The Slaughterhouse,” Hanan Nasr, a mother of three, watched FJP members pass out free packages of rice and oil to voters on their way to the polling station – again in contravention of campaign law. They also bused in party members from surrounding neighborhoods.

Voter confusion played into the hands of the FJP. Many voters simply did not know who the candidates were because of the sheer number of mostly unknown candidates (4,000), unknown parties (35 new ones since President Hosni Mubarak fell from power) and a complicated voting system requiring choices of farmer, labor and independent candidates. 

Mohamed Abd El Ghany / Reuters

A woman casts her vote at a polling station during the second day of parliamentary elections in Alexandria, Egypt on Tuesday. Click on the photo to see a complete slideshow of pictures from the Egyptian election.

For those who did not understand the voting system, the FJP had people on hand before the election to explain how to make their ballots count – for FJP candidates.

Although Nasr voted for a liberal party, her son, Ali, opted for the only party he was familiar with, the FJP.  Some FJP members had been signing up voters in Nasr’s neighborhood in the run up to the election and distributed free school supplies. And before the recent Eid al-Adha or Feast of the Sacrifice holiday, the one time of year when everybody in Egypt must have meat to celebrate the holiday, the FJP sold meat at half the market price to Cairo’s many disadvantaged.  
 
Clearly, the FJP struck a chord with voters.  Most of those we spoke to said they were voting FJP because they were well organized, helped the poor, and would uphold religious law. 

“They look to God,” said taxi driver Saad Abdul Aziz, who voted FJP.  “They must be just.”

Mahmud Hams / AFP - Getty Images

Muslim Brotherhood members distribute fliers to voters outside a polling station in the Manial neighbourhood of Cairo on Monday.

Shifting promises
In the wake of the revolution, the FJP initially promised to compete for only 30 percent of parliamentary seats, in order not to frighten civil society and the interim military government.  They gradually upped that figure to 100 percent. 

Likewise, a promise not to field presidential candidates was soon broken.  The FJP had joined a much larger political bloc of secular and religious parties running for president, but the alliance fell apart when the FJP tried to dominate party lists.
 
The official election results will be announced Thursday evening, but the FJP is expected to win big in Egypt’s two largest cities, Cairo and Alexandria. 

Since it’s a parliamentary system, their leaders have already demanded that if their party wins the largest proportion of seats as a party, they should be entitled to form the new government.

In view of the FJP’s track record of broken promises, many wonder what kind of government they would be and whether they will respect their promise to adhere to democratic process and take into account Egypt’s secularists and 10 percent Christian population. 

Dan Murphy of The Christian Science Monitor raises the question fo whether the Muslim Brotherhood's decision to join talks with the government could cost it critical popular support:

The Sunday afternoon talks drew outrage in the square, where protesters described the Brother's concessions as helping the establishment buy time and find a way to preserve one-party rule here beyond September elections, in which Mr. Mubarak has promised not to run. They also expressed concern that Mr. Suleiman was leading the reform movement into a trap.

"I don't know what [senior Brotherhood leader Esam el-] Erian is thinking, I really don't," said a secular protest leader, who's spent years trying to bring the Brotherhood into a broader reform camp. "We all know who Suleiman is and what he's capable of. This is splitting the Brotherhood and could leave all of us isolated and in danger."

Update 11:50 a.m. ET: President Barack Obama will take questions on Egypt at 3:10 p.m. ET, The Associated Press reports.

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Here's the latest news from Egypt this morning:

• Protesters demanding President Hosni Mubarak's ouster have packed Tahrir Square by the tens of thousands in what is being called the "Friday of Departure."

• Tens of thousands of people are also protesting again in Alexandria, Al Jazeera reports.

• Prominent government figures are beginning to join the protesters, The New York Times reports.

• Security forces broke into the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood's official news Web site ikhwanonline.com, and arrested 12 journalists and technicians inside, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm, Egypt's largest independent newspaper.

•  Media in Montenegro are reporting that President Hosni Mubarak's  son and close personal friends are preparing for him to flee to exile there, Al Jazeera reports. Montenegro already hosts deposed Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

• The protests have shuttered businesses, forced factories to halt operations, closed banks and the stock exchange and limited suppliers' ability to restock store shelves — adding to the economic pinch many protesters say is a key catalyst for joining the demonstrations.

• Desperate pleas for food, for help finding lost friends, even remote offers of first aid help from supposed professionals can be found in abundance on Twitter.