Cairo's Candidate Shuffle

Over the last few weeks, the Egyptian presidential race has packed in a lifetime of political drama -- and then some. First, in late March and early April, the Muslim Brotherhood broke its pledge not to run any candidates in the election and proceeded to register not one but two. Then, on April 6, Omar Suleiman, former President Hosni Mubarak's intelligence chief, announced that he was "a soldier that had never refused an order in his life" and would therefore reluctantly accept his supporters' supposed clamoring for him to enter the race. The dust from those bombshells hadn't even settled when Egypt's administrative court disqualified Suleiman; Khairat el-Shater, the Brotherhood's chief strategist and first-choice candidate;  Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, a hard-line Salafist; and seven other contenders from the race.