Ahmed Shafik

CAIRO - The revolutionaries chanted in frustrated knots beneath lifeless flags Friday in Tahrir Square, trying to revive the spirit of a movement that once brought down an autocrat but now has been cleverly outmaneuvered by a powerful military. The day after a constitutional court dissolved the nation's first freely elected parliament, Egyptians braced for a presidential election and the prospect that the rebellion that toppled Hosni Mubarak belonged more to history books than today's headlines.

CAIRO — The historic election of Egypt's first Islamist president collided immediately with the political reality that the ruling military council has amassed legislative and executive powers in a strategy to block the Muslim Brotherhood from controlling the Arab world's most populous nation. Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi defeated Ahmed Shafik, the last prime minister to serve deposed leader Hosni Mubarak, the national elections commission announced Sunday. The race polarized the country and foreshadowed the political maneuverings certain to shape Egypt's incendiary transition to democracy after decades of autocratic rule.

CAIRO - With his hands chained and raised toward the sky, Ahmed Elsayed Attia stood chanting in the heart of Tahrir Square with dozens of fellow Muslim Brotherhood supporters against Egypt's military rulers. Referring to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, or SCAF, as "thieves" bringing Egypt to its knees, Attia, a state employee earning no more than $150 a month, lifted his metal chains as a symbol of despair for him and his nation. On the other side of the vast square, a sparse crowd of about 100 Islamists celebrated and chanted, "Here is the president.

CAIRO - Egyptians began voting Saturday for a new president, but the joy that defined the first round of elections last month had turned sullen, as if they were enduring the final betrayal of a revolution by a ruling military that has manipulated events from the wings for six decades. The choice they face in two days of balloting is stark and unsettling: Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi represents an untested political Islam, and Ahmed Shafik, the last prime minister to serve toppled leader Hosni Mubarak, is an old-guard loyalist whose victory would repudiate the demands for change that fueled last year's rebellion.

CAIRO - The Muslim Brotherhood claimed victory in Egypt's landmark presidential runoff election early Monday, but its historic rise to power was blunted by a decree from the ruling military council to greatly limit the authority of the nation's next leader. The army's action was the latest maneuver by deposed autocrat Hosni Mubarak's old guard to hold sway over the country even as its longtime nemesis was promising a new era, marking a dramatic shift in fortunes in the Arab world's most populous country.

CAIRO - The battle between Egypt's military leaders and the ascendant Muslim Brotherhood over the country's political fate dramatically sharpened when the nation's constitutional court dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament while upholding the right of an ally of deposed leader Hosni Mubarak to remain on this weekend's presidential election ballot. The decisions by the Supreme Constitutional Court on Thursday strengthened the army's hand and tipped the nation into disarray two days before the presidential runoff begins.

CAIRO - The life sentence imposed on toppled President Hosni Mubarak for complicity in the deaths of hundreds of protesters marks an unprecedented milestone in Egypt's path toward democracy yet serves as a reminder of the political limitations challenging rebellions that have swept the Arab world. Mubarak epitomized the calculating autocrat, and Saturday's verdict reverberated across a region that has seldom seen the strong so precipitously tumble in popular revolt. But behind the image of the disgraced leader propped up on a stretcher in the defendants' cage remains a nation not fully free of his grasp.

Egypt's ruling military council apologized Saturday after military police used truncheons and electric shock batons against late-night protesters in Tahrir Square, birthplace of the country's nascent democracy. About 25 people were arrested and others were treated for injuries after the soldiers chased several hundred protesters from the downtown crossroads shortly after midnight, witnesses and the army said. The episode was the first direct confrontation between the protesters who toppled longtime President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11 and the military authorities who have governed since.

"Double Edge" (selected theaters) is a terrible movie but fascinating as a case study in star behavior. A well-intentioned but hopelessly contrived Israeli picture dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it casts Faye Dunaway as a reporter from a fictional New York newspaper sent to Jerusalem to stand in for its regular correspondent for three weeks only.