A boy peers through barbed wire at Egyptian military police standing guard outside the Constitutional Court in Cairo on Thursday.
Presidential candidate Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, who is set for a runoff election against Ahmed Shafiq, speaks at a press conference in Cairo on Wednesday.
Former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, center, is seated before addressing a business conference in Cairo on Wednesday.
Egyptians read the front page of newspapers for sale outside of Al-Fatah Mosque in Cairo on Friday.
Ballots are counted by election officials in Alexandria as the country eagerly awaits the outcome.
A supporter of presidential candidate Abdelmonen Abol Fotoh voices her opinions at Tahrir Square on Friday.
Supporters of various candidates debate outside Al-Fatah Mosque in Cairo.
Electoral officials monitor voting in Namul, a village north of Cairo, on Thursday, the second and final day of voting in Egypt's historic presidential election. Egypt is holding its first presidential election since last year's toppling of Hosni Mubarak, part of the wave of Arab Spring uprisings.
Egyptian women wait in line Thursday to cast their vote outside a polling station in Cairo. If no candidate gets a majority of the vote in the first round of voting, a second round will be held June 16-17.
An election worker checks the identification of a voter at a polling place Thursday in Namul as Egyptian soldiers stand guard.
A soldier stands watch in the Egyptian capital on the second day of voting. A pervasive fear exists that the powerful military, which has run the country since Mubarak's fall 16 months ago, could try to hijack the election.
An Egyptian man waits to cast his ballot Thursday north of Cairo. The vote is considered Egypt's first free and fair presidential election in modern history.
An Egyptian man drops off his ballot at a polling station Thursday in Cairo. The voting marks the first time Egypt has held a presidential election in which the results aren't known beforehand.
An Egyptian woman holds up an ink-stained finger after casting her ballot in Cairo on Wednesday, the first day of voting in the historic election.
A voter studies her ballot Wednesday in Cairo. Thirteen candidates are competing in the wide-open race, but two withdrew after ballots were printed.
Egyptian men fill out their ballots Wednesday in Cairo. Results of the first round of voting are not expected before the weekend.
An Egyptian man casts his ballot at a Cairo polling station. Some Egyptians told CNN that they waited up to four hours Wednesday to vote.
Egyptian men shield themselves from the hot sun outside a Cairo polling station Wednesday.
Egyptian men line up to cast their vote Wednesday in Cairo. Some 30,000 volunteers fanned out to ensure voting is fair, said organizers with the April 6 youth movement, which has campaigned for greater democracy in Egypt.
Egyptian men fill out their ballots at a Cairo polling place.
Presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahy, a leftist dark-horse contender, flashes a sign of victory as he waits to vote at a Cairo school.
Presidential candidate Abdelmonen Abol Fotoh, a moderate Islamist, casts his ballot Wednesday in Cairo.
An Egyptian Coptic nun drops her ballot at a Cairo polling station Wednesday.
Egyptian women wait outside a polling station in Cairo. Many Egyptians seem uncertain of their loyalties to any particular candidate.




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  • Renewed street demonstrations could be in Egypt's near future, experts say
  • High court ruling dissolves new parliament, further empowering military
  • Events amount to a "soft coup" for the military, often seen as bulwark against Islamists
  • "Egypt is entering into a very dangerous stage," analyst says



(CNN) -- An Egyptian high court ruling Thursday that dissolves Egypt's freshly elected parliament is akin to a coup d'état favoring the old guard and the military and could bring renewed unrest, according to many analysts.
Experts are watching to see whether the decision reignites the unrest and street demonstrations that drove former strongman Hosni Mubarak from power last year and whether ordinary Egyptians will consider the ruling an attempt by the ruling elite to snuff out the promise of democracy fought for in Tahrir Square.
The court is considered partial to the prior regime headed by Mubarak, in which the military played a pivotal role. The military is considered by many to be a bulwark against the power and influence of Islamists in Egypt.

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The ruling also comes as the country faces the prospect of Islamist control -- Islamists dominated the voided parliament and one of the two final candidates running for president has strong ties to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and their political wing the Freedom and Justice Party.
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"Essentially, no, the court is not neutral," said Steven Cook, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It is very much part of the old regime. I think you are going to see people pouring into the streets and demand change."
Following the court decision, Egypt's interim military rulers declared full legislative authority, creating deep anxiety and uncertainty about the country's future.
It was just on January 23 -- two days before the anniversary of the birth of a revolution that eventually toppled Mubarak -- when the military surrendered legislative powers to the first parliament in the country's history to be dominated by Islamists, whose two parties won about 70% of the seats in the lower house.
Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center, said the court rulings were the "worst possible outcome" for Egypt and that the transition to civilian rule was "effectively over."
The real obstacle to democracy in Egypt
"Egypt is entering into a very dangerous stage, and I think a lot of people were caught by surprise," Hamid said. "We knew it was getting bad, but we didn't think it was getting this bad."
Eric Trager, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, characterized the situation as a "soft coup in Egypt, in which the military has moved at the very least to use a judicial decision that involved one third of the parliament to dissolve the whole parliament."
That action "really signals it's moving very sharply against the political process," Trager said.
Trager said the military leadership is really piling on the pressure on the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political group.
"The question is whether that's going to lead the Muslim Brotherhood to up its own confrontation with the military or whether the Brotherhood will use it as an opportunity to seek some kind of accord with the military," he said.
Under a separate decision by the high court Thursday, Ahmed Shafik -- the last prime minister under Mubarak -- will be allowed to run in this weekend's runoff election. The court rejected a law barring former regime members from running in the election.
The runoff Saturday and Sunday pits Shafik against Mohamed Morsi, head of the Freedom and Justice Party.
Right now, the military and the Muslim Brotherhood have ongoing conversations, but it is not yet clear what they may produce, Trager said.
The Brotherhood could seek a deal where Morsi is made prime minister if Shafik wins the presidency, Trager said.

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If the Muslim Brotherhood commits itself to confrontation in the form of street protests -- thereby threatening a second revolution -- that could be a game-changing situation, Trager said.
Photos: Inside one of Cairo's poorest neighborhoods
On Thursday, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, in control of the country since Mubarak's ouster, announced that it will impanel a 100-person assembly that will write the country's new constitution by Friday.
Taken together, the military leadership's actions indicate "there's a high likelihood of Shafik being aided to victory by the military," Trager said.
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