Egypt's Tahrir Square quiet ahead of anti-election rally

People began gathering in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday for a mass rally just one day before an election to replace ousted leader Hosni Mubarak.                     

Demonstrators want to boycott the election after Egypt's Supreme Court ruled on Thursday to dissolve the country's Islamist-led parliament, plunging a troubled transition to democracy into turmoil.                     

The Supreme Constitutional Court also ruled that Mubarak's last Prime Minister, Ahmed Shafik, could stay in the presidential race against the Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsy.                        Islamists who gained most from Mubarak's overthrow decried what they called a "coup" by an army-led establishment still full of Mubarak-era officials.                      

They said the street movement that spurred last year's uprising would not let it pass, a sentiment echoed on the streets.                       

"The revolution has achieved nothing so far. The political scene at the moment is that Mubarak's ex-prime minister is a strong front-runner and he has a real chance of being the next president. The youth of the revolution say that we are living a situation that is similar to the Romanian revolution when the president had been killed and his deputy got into power shortly after. The revolutionaries in Egypt are passing through something similar to the French revolutionaries who were sentenced by courts," Fawzy Killany, a government official said.                         
Protest organizers expect a million demonstrators to turn out for the rally.                      

The Muslim Brotherhood said the court rulings indicated Egypt was heading into "very difficult days that might be more dangerous than the last days of Mubarak's rule".                         

Adel Abdel Salam, a registered voter, said large-scale demonstrations can still influence political outcomes in the country.                        

"It is a plain fact that if anybody wants to get back their rights they should come to here to claim their demands. Because the military council will not satisfy those demands and the Muslim Brotherhood will not respond either, so the people are the making the decisions now and the people are driving events and any force who tries to dictate something to the people will not be welcomed at all," he said.        

For 16 months since Mubarak was toppled after 30 years in office, a transition overseen by generals has been beset by political bickering, protests and often bloodshed.                       

But many Egyptians had at least taken some reassurance from the calm conduct of this year's parliamentary election and the prospect of a presidential poll.                       

Now even those gains are being plunged into doubt, although the army said the presidential poll would go ahead on time.        

Reuters