Egypt's revolution faces stern test as country votes for president Posters in Cairo promote presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq, who was the last prime minister for ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Shafiq is opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate, Mohamed Morsi. Photograph: Amr Nabil/AP Egypt's embattled revolution faces one of its sternest tests on Saturday, as the country goes to the polls to elect its first post-Mubarak president amid a whirlwind of popular disillusionment and an unprecedented constitutional crisis. As heavyweights from across the political spectrum queued up to condemn what they described as a "blatant coup" by the old regime - a reference to three critical legal moves over the past week that appear designed to entrench military rule - and protesters returned once again to Tahrir Square, Nobel peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei told the Guardian that his nation was on the verge of seeing a "new emperor" ascend to the throne. "We are in a total mess, a confused process that - assuming good intentions - has led us nowhere except the place we were at 18 months ago [when Mubarak fell], but under even more adverse conditions," said the opposition figurehead who withdrew from the presidential race earlier this year, arguing that a fair vote could not be held while the country remained in the grip of a violent junta. Following an emergency late-night meeting, the Muslim Brotherhood - whose candidate Mohamed Morsi is pitted against Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force commander and Mubarak's final prime minister, in the two-day presidential run-off vote - announced it was ignoring widespread calls to quit the electoral game in light of the constitutional uncertainty and vowed instead to fight on at the ballot box. "We are now facing a heinous coup, shamelessly aborting the revolution," claimed the political Islamists in a statement, as confirmation came through that the Brotherhood-dominated parliament had been dissolved by Mubarak-appointed judges. "Everyone knows we are facing a defining moment and a critical turning point," the statement continued, before going on to call for a "million-man march" to polling stations in an effort to hand Morsi victory and revitalise the struggle for change. "We will continue," Essam al-Erian, a senior Brotherhood official, told the Guardian. This is our battle, the battle of the people, and voting for Mohamed Morsi means victory for the revolution. He went on to argue that a Morsi withdrawal would hand legitimacy to Shafiq and surrender the opportunity to expose electoral fraud, adding that "now that we have democracy, we must guard it." But many would question what sort of democracy Egypt is really enjoying, ahead of elections that are being conducted in a carefully manipulated climate of fear and division. Some high-profile commentators, including ElBaradei and author Alaa al-Aswany, have announced they will not be casting a ballot, echoing a grassroots boycott movement that has been steadily building up steam in recent days. ElBaradei, often viewed as a unifying figure by both secular and Islamist forces, issued one of his harshest condemnations yet of the Brotherhood and demanded to know why they were taking part in the poll at all. "The Brotherhood have not served themselves well - they have scared people right, left and centre with some of the extremist views put forward from them and other Islamist groups," he argued. ElBaradei also spoke out against the "leaderless" vision of Egypt's revolutionary youth, claiming that the failure to delegate authority and produce a unifying set of demands had proved a "mortal mistake." On Wednesday Egypt's judiciary issued a decree extending the military's power to arbitrarily investigate and detain civilians, a move which Amnesty International labelled as "legally sanctioned abuse." With no constitution or parliament in place to check presidential power, critics fear that a Shafiq victory will deliver Egypt an army-backed autocrat with even stronger powers than Mubarak. But some analysts believe the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (Scaf), which assumed control of the country when Mubarak was overthrown in February of last year, has overplayed its hand. "In many ways the military have got more actual hard power right now in Egypt than they've had at any time since 1954," said Michael Hanna, an Egypt expert at the Century Foundation. The day after Mubarak was toppled, the military enjoyed honorary sainthood and nobody wanted to question them. With that kind of soft power they could have found a way to protect their authority and privileges, but instead they went down a route which has ensured the role of the armed forces is now a live issue in the body politic in a way that it never was before. As darkness fell on Friday night, defeated pro-revolutionary election candidate Abdel Munim Aboul Fotouh declared that "the regime has not gone" and led a protest march across the capital which culminated in Tahrir Square. But with only hours to go before the polling stations opened their doors, demonstrator numbers were relatively thin compared to previous revolutionary rallies. "The revolutionaries are stuck because the Brotherhood are loath to join any protests - doing so would be a boon for Shafiq - and street mobilisations just help reinforce the counter-revolutionary narrative," said Hanna. Ultimately protests in Tahrir have been normalised to the extent that they're no longer a menace to the status quo.