Tahrir Square protests

Thousands of Egyptians gathered for a protest on Friday in Cairo's Tahrir Square, demanding that interim military rulers stand by their promise to hand over power after presidential elections at the end of May.

The generals in command since former President Hosni Mubarak's ouster recently disqualified 10 presidential candidates, including a front-runner representing the Muslim Brotherhood.

Friday's protest, held at the site in central Cairo that was a key location for the movement that toppled Mubarak's regime, was attended by both Islamists and liberals, united in their frustration about the military junta and moves that some consider to be a threat to moving Egypt's new democracy forward.

One protest, different aims

But the Muslim Brotherhood, while joining liberals and youth organizations in Tahrir Square, is not necessarily after the same thing.

The Brotherhood's political party, Freedom and Justice, dominated parliamentary elections in December but sees the military council as interfering with its natural political ascension after barring its top candidate.

Khairat el-Shater was rejected because of a law that stipulates that candidates linked to criminal activity in the past cannot stand in elections until they have been released or pardoned for six years; he was imprisoned last year for terrorism and money laundering.

Mubarak's former spy chief Omar Suleiman and Islamic preacher Hazem Abu Ismail have also been disqualified.

Suleiman was barred because of his failure to get enough endorsements from all 15 provinces, as the law demands.

Abu Ismail, an ultra-conservative Salafist, was disqualified because his mother holds a foreign passport. Election rules say that the parents of candidates must be solely Egyptian citizens. Some of his supporters were on hand Friday to rally against the election's committee decision to disqualify him.

Constitutional conundrum

In addition to the disqualification of certain presidential candidates, the military council has indicated its desire to have a new constitution in place before the elections take place, which would be ahead of schedule. Some worry that by pushing the deadline for a new constitution forward, work on crafting it will be rushed and incomplete.

A committee established in December and tasked with drawing up a new constitution was dissolved after Christian and Muslim religious figures withdrew due to complaints that the committee was dominated by political Islamists.

Liberal and youth protesters on Friday called for new criteria for the committee to ensure that it was representative of all Egyptians. They also tried to rally support for a single anti-military "revolution" candidate that all factions could get behind, but the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists did not get on board.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the best organized political organization in Egypt, is still in the race. Mohamed Mursi, who heads the group's political party, was nominated as a back-up candidate in the event of Shater's disqualification.

The presidential election is scheduled to kick off with a first round of voting on May 23 and 24. Commentators expect that to lead to a run-off in June between the top two candidates. The ruling military council is scheduled to transfer power to the new president on July 1.

mz/pfd (Reuters, AFP, AP)