Egyptians decry runoff candidate

Thousands of people took to the streets in cities across Egypt on Friday to demand that Ahmed Shafiq, a former senior official in Hosni Mubarak's ousted government, be disqualified from next month's presidential runoff.

Shafiq, who served as Mubarak's last prime minister, was one of the top two finishers in the first round of Egypt's landmark presidential election last month, advancing to a June 16-17 runoff against Mohammed Morsi, the candidate of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood.

The Morsi-Shafiq runoff is a polarizing contest. It mirrors the conflict between Mubarak, himself a career air force officer like Shafiq, and the Islamists he jailed and tortured throughout his years in power. But it sidelines the mostly young, secular activists who led the popular uprising last year.