Decision day for disillusioned Egyptians

Going head-to-head in the runoff are Ahmed Shafiq, a long-time friend and self-confessed admirer of Mubarak, and Mohammed Morsi of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood.

The weekend vote followed a week of political drama in which the military announced de facto martial rule and judges appointed by Mubarak before his ouster dissolved the freely elected, Islamist-dominated parliament.

The generals who took over from Mubarak 16 months ago are expected this week to spell out the powers of the new president and appoint a 100-member panel to draft a new constitution.

The race between Shafiq and Morsi has deeply divided the country, 16 months after a stunning uprising by millions forced the authoritarian Mubarak to step down after 29 years in office.

“I am bitter and I am filled with regret that I have to choose between two people I hate,” lamented a pensioner in Cairo’s crowded Bab el-Shariyah district.

Another voter, accountant Yasser Gad, 45, said: “The country is heading to a disaster. It will keep boiling until it explodes. No one in the country wants the former regime to rule us again.”

Few voters displayed an air of celebration visible in previous post-Mubarak elections. The prevailing mood was one of deep anxiety over the future – tinged with bitterness that their “revolution” had stalled, or deep suspicion that the political system was being manipulated.

The head of the UN observers’ mission in Syria, Major General Robert Mood, has demanded that warring parties allow the evacuation of endangered women, children, elderly and sick from the besieged city of Homs and other combat zones.