The choices in the race raised worries among many whether real democracy will emerge in Egypt. And the final result, likely to come only after a runoff next month, will only open a new chapter of political struggle.

But in the lines at the polls, voters were palpably excited at the chance to decide their country's path in the vote, which is the fruit of last year's stunning popular revolt that overthew Mubarak after 29 years in power. For the past 60 years, Egypt's presidents running unchallenged have largely been re-affirmed in yes-or-no referendums that few bothered to vote in.

Mohammed Salah, 26, emerged grinning from a poll station, fresh from casting his ballot. "Before, they used to take care of that for me," he said. "Today, I am choosing for myself."

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"I can die in a matter of months, so I came for my children, so they can live," a tearful Medhat Ibrahim, 58, who suffers from cancer, said as he waited to vote in a poor district south of Cairo. "We want to live better, like human beings."

Thirteen candidates, who include Islamists, liberals and Mubarak regime figures, are contesting the election. No outright winner is expected to emerge from the two-day vote starting Wednesday. So, a runoff between the two top finishers will be held June 16-17. The winner will be announced on June 21.

"It's a miracle," said Selwa Abdel-Malik, a 60-year-old Christian from the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria as she was about to vote. "And it's a beautiful feeling too."

For most of his 29-year rule, Mubarak — like his predecessors — ran unopposed in yes-or-no referendums. Rampant fraud guaranteed ruling party victories in parliamentary elections. Even when, in 2005, Mubarak let challengers oppose him in elections, he ended up not only trouncing his liberal rival but jailing him.

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Omran, a self-described feminist and human rights activist, was there attempting to legally represent the protesters, including 26 female detainees — one as young as 14-years old — all accused by the military prosecution of attacking military personnel.

But she was barred from entry, an insult added to injury by the military, a powerful and patriarchal institution that has been accused of many violations, including the sexual assault of its own female prisoners and aggressive indifference to the rights of women on a wide scale.

“They were denying me entry because it was 2 a.m., with the excuse that I am a female so it is ‘too late’ for me to enter the premises,” she told GlobalPost. “I stood there regardless and continued to demand to enter because each detainee has the right to a lawyer.”

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The candidate is former Muslim Brotherhood member and moderate Islamist Abdel Meneim Aboul Fotouh. In the past week, he has clinched endorsements from across the political spectrum, including from three key Islamist groups. Fotouh suspended his campaign this week after clashes erupted between protesters and plainclothed assailants, but is expected to resume before elections are held on May 24.

His status as a prominent Brotherhood outsider seems to be one of his main selling points — both for other Islamists eager to break free from the influence of the 80-year-old Brotherhood movement, and for liberals scared of its rise.

The Brotherhood’s own Islam-oriented Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won a sweeping victory in the country’s recent parliamentary elections and now dominates parliament. Critics worried that if they took the presidency as well, the Brotherhood’s power would be too great in Egypt’s post-revolution political landscape, with uncertain consequences for the country’s nascent democracy.

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So, it's not a real thing. There's no such law or even any evidence that anyone proposed said law, and even if someone had proposed such a law, there is not even a remote possibility that the Egyptian Parliament would consider it. It's total bullshit. It's the Daily Mail overhyping a story Al-Arabiya took from a newspaper opinion column written by a dedicated Hosni Mubarak supporter.

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But while more freedom and social justice remain a possibility for Egypt, bread might be harder to come by.

The country’s growing population, and its loosening grip on the Nile, are threatening its water supply, weakening its capacity to irrigate crops and boosting the desert nation’s reliance on food imports from an increasingly volatile global commodities market.

It’s a dangerous situation many fear could lead to renewed political strife.

“People are scared of going hungry. They’ll give up anything but bread,” said 32-year-old Mohamed Maysara Hassan, an employee at one of the many bakeries that sell Egypt’s subsidized bread — a staple — in the heart of Cairo.

If the ailing government was forced to lift its hefty bread subsidy, which keeps one saucer-sized loaf at just $0.008, “There will be another revolution,” Hassan said.

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Washington is currently pressing Interpol to deny Egypt’s request, even as other countries in the region regard the American NGOs with suspicion. The United Arab Emirates has just banned one of the American groups, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and a similar group from Germany, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Observers are waiting to see if other countries will issue similar bans.

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The Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, which already holds a majority in parliament, continued to solidify its political power last week when it announced that Khairet Al Shater, the group’s former deputy chair, will run for president on the party’s ticket.

The nomination followed weeks of barbs over the extent of parliament’s power, between the party and Egypt’s ruling generals, known as the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF).

Leading members of the Freedom and Justice Party, or FJP, said last week they would press the military to be more transparent in its financial dealings. The extent of the military’s business interests is largely unknown.

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Gay men could be seen in Tahrir cruising with knowing glances as they leaned against the guardrails, Cairo’s traffic swirling around them. They were hidden in plain sight.

In many ways, the huge demonstrations of early 2011 that took place in Tahrir Square and led to the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak inspired Egypt’s gay community to join the call for a new, more democratic nation.

But now more than a year into the revolution, Egypt’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community has stepped back out of the public eye and retreated into the shadows once again.

Their high hopes for a more open, accepting society have been put on hold as the ruling military continues its firm grip on power and socially liberal revolutionaries have largely failed to secure positions in the legislature.

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Hundreds of thousands — some boasted a million — descended on Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square Wednesday to mark the first anniversary of the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak and to call for an end to military rule.

The square was so packed that the crowds spilled onto the bridges and streets that fan out from the plaza and into Cairo’s downtown streets, with chants for freedom thundering against the area’s crumbling, colonial-era buildings.

The sheer number of demonstrators — as well as their insistence that celebrations of the so-called revolution be rejected — seemed to suggest Egypt’s young firebrand dissidents have a groundswell of support in their bid to fell the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), a coterie of unelected generals that seized power after Mubarak's resignation.

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The Brotherhood, which did not initially support the revolution that began a year ago, reaped its benefits, capturing nearly half the seats in the new parliament, which was seated this week, and vaulting its top leaders into positions of power.

Arguably the most powerful man in the Muslim Brotherhood is Khairat Al-Shater, a multimillionaire tycoon whose financial interests extend into electronics, manufacturing and retail. A strong advocate of privatization, Al-Shater is one of a cadre of Muslim Brotherhood businessmen who helped finance the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party’s impressive electoral victory this winter and is now crafting the FJP’s economic agenda.

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As Egyptians plan to rally and march Wednesday to mark the one-year anniversary of the start of their revolution, nearly a dozen youths from across the political and socioeconomic spectrum told me Egypt had fundamentally changed, although not all agreed that transformation had been for the better. From increased political freedoms to fewer economic opportunities, the uprising has led to both expected and unexpected consequences for Egypt’s youth, who make up 25 percent of the country’s population.

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El-Beheiry struggled like most Egyptians, but his family says he kept a simple dream of being able to afford an apartment and to save enough to finance a modest wedding. He minded his own business.

But like hundreds of thousands of Egyptians El-Beheiry found himself swept up in the momentum of history and he took to the streets to join the protests that began January 25, 2011 and 18 days later resulted in the downfall of Mubarak. El-Beheiry continued to challenge authority — newly empowered, his family says, by the idea of a better future. On Feb. 25, he was arrested along with dozens of other protesters in front of the building where Egyptian cabinet meets.

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“Now, the Americans come to meet us in person because they have estimated that we will be coming to power,” Mohamed Saad Katatny , the secretary-general of the Brotherhood-affiliated Freedom and Justice Party, told the Washington Post, “and therefore they want to know us, but we have not discussed more than the general conditions and made introductions.”

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By late afternoon, the crowd had spilled onto El Kasr El Aini Street, past the Soviet-built Mogamma building (the heart of Egyptian bureaucracy), the Ministry of Transport and the People's Assembly to Al Aswany's office in Garden City. Dozens of bearded men with welting prayer marks on their foreheads — bused in from around the country in the dead of night — slept on the dusty pavements.

Al Aswany's office is in a fairly rundown building on Diwan Street. There is a sign with mismatched lettering hanging from the building over the sidewalk. It reads:

Dr. Alaa EL Aswany

Dentist

D.D.S (Cairo University)

M.S. University of ILLINOIS

4th FlOOR

Al Aswany's tiny waiting area leads into a slightly larger examining room. The floor was covered in a pinkish Formica, reflecting lines of fluorescent light. In a darkened alcove stood his dentists' chair. An over-sized ashtray was arranged in the middle of a glass coffee table. After a few minutes he walked in, dressed in gray trousers and a striped shirt.

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Many attribute this bump to the Brotherhood’s impressive ground-game.  “Each Muslim Brotherhood member signs on to a rigorous educational curriculum and is part of something called an usra, or family, which meets weekly,”  explains Shadi Hamid  Director of Research at the Brookings Doha Center, “If a Brother chooses to stay home on election day, other Brothers will know.”

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On "The Daily Show" last night, Jon Stewart and correspondent Aasif Mandvi examined the aversion of many Americans to Egypt's elections. And, as Mandvi pointed out:

Look! You can't control everything that happens in other countries. Lots of countries have policies that aren't in our interest. France wants to buy oil from Iran. China wants to sell us toys made of lead. Russia wants to extinguish the sun. Why should Egypt be any different?

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A protest movement in January may have led to the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak, but most Egyptians are left wondering how much has actually changed. Were the heady days of street demonstrations truly a revolution or a popular uprising that has resulted in a military takeover?

Political reform has moved at a snail's pace. Some of the most brutal hallmarks of Mubarak’s autocratic regime have returned, including arbitrary detention, military trials and torture.

And an already stagnating economy is deteriorating amid ongoing workers’ strikes and sporadic violence.

Many now blame the country’s ruling military leaders, the once revered Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which assumed power in the transition following Mubarak’s departure.

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While millions packed Tahrir in January and February during the uprising that ultimately toppled former President Hosni Mubarak, this week’s unrest appeared to lack the popular support that marked the earlier protests. While many sympathize with the families of those who have been killed or injured, they have also grown tired of the political paralysis that has generated instability and kept the economy down.

“People are focused on one thing: work,” explained Hany, a 35 year-old doorman who also works at a local cultural center. “Work so they can feed their family. Stability.”

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