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Not only did Egypt pull off its first democratic presidentialelection in the country's history last week, but it managed to makeit a relatively clean vote. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter toldjournalists in Cairo over the weekend that international monitorsworking for the Carter Center had noted minor violations during theelection, but nothing so serious as to impact the result.Enthusiasm seemed high: Egypt's High Electoral Commission reporteda relatively high turnout. And yet, the results are not what anyone expected. Neither of thetwo initial frontrunners for the June 16 and 17 run-off votequalified for that round of voting. Instead, the two men who arenow expected to come out on top are the two most polarizingcandidates on the ballot: the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsy,and ousted President Hosni Mubarak's former prime minister AhmedShafik. "It's a charade," laughs Adel al-Sobki, who owns a Cairosupermarket, and says he voted for the Arab nationalist candidateHamdeen Sabbahi. "We're now stuck with either the old regime or theMuslim Brotherhood." (PHOTOS: Egypt Goes to the Polls To Egypt's liberals and leftists, it's a nightmare scenario. In arace that involved 13 candidates, and five frontrunners —including three relative moderates, like Sabbahi — the countryhas wound up with two extremes to choose their next leader from.It's a reality that has left some Egyptians promising to boycottthe June electoral finale, and others simply wondering: where didwe go wrong? Hassan Nafaa, a political scientist at Cairo University, has acouple of theories. And he says the biggest factor in Egypt'selectoral outcome may be the failed strategies of the country'slosing moderates and their supporters. Hamdeen Sabbahi and AbdelMoneim Aboul Futouh, an independent Islamist, may have been toosimilar to each other for either one to win, he argues. The two areexpected to sweep third and fourth place respectively, but onlyShafik and Morsy will proceed to the run-off. Both Aboul Futouh andSabbahi hold moderate political views, and were active participantsin last year's uprising — factors that appeal to voters acrossthe spectrum, from liberals to Islamists and socialists, and thusprobably dissipating their support across the same range. Other Egyptians voted for the popular, former Arab League chief AmrMoussa. But in the end, Egyptian moderates — perhaps apolitical force only as a combined mass — were too divided."Had they coordinated and voted in one direction — either tosupport Aboul Futouh or Sabbahi — one of them would be in therun-off," says Nafaa. "There was a lack of coordination between theso-called revolutionary forces." (MORE: Egypt: Could a Pro-Military Candidate Become President Fairand Square?) That lack of organization may have proven critical. When the highelectoral commission announces the final results, Sabbahi and AboulFutouh's campaigns are expecting to see numbers that reveal a tightrace. But Morsy and Shafik were the only two candidates who havesolid voting constituencies — a reality that most politicalanalysts under-estimated going into the election. For Morsy, thatwas the Muslim Brotherhood, long the strongest opposition toMubarak's rule, and in the aftermath of the uprising, Egypt's mostorganized political machine. The Brotherhood may be a minorityamong the country's 85 million people, but after competing innumerous parliamentary elections — including the sham votesunder Mubarak — they know how to get voters to the polls. Onelection day their supporters pushed undecided Egyptians to thepolls, and ran help tables to guide voters to their appropriatepolling stations. Morsy's candidacy also appealed to theultra-conservative Salafis, whose own candidate had beendisqualified by the electoral commission ahead of the vote. Analysts say Shafik, a former air force commander and Mubarak'slast prime minister, had automatic backers too: the Egyptians whonever supported the revolution to begin with as well as thecountry's powerful armed forces. Egyptians currently serving themilitary and police force are technically banned from castingvotes, but some of Shafik's opposition allege that thousands ofsoldiers may have voted anyway, or at least used their clout toconvince voters one way or the other. "The whole state apparatuswas behind Shafik," says Nafaa. "Maybe there was no directintervention, but all those who are enrolled in the army may havegotten directives to vote for him, and this is forbidden." But there is no doubt that Shafik also struck a chord with millionsof Egyptians who say they're fed up with a struggling economy andthe plummeting public security since Mubarak's downfall. For manyof the country's poor, Shafik's unapologetic attitude about histies to the old regime seemed to promise a military toughness thatwould return security to the streets.To Egypt's Christian minority,and indeed many secularists fearful of an Islamist takeover,Shafik's hardline on the Brotherhood also harkened back toMubarak's era, in which religious conservatives stayed in jail orunder close watch by state security — never allowed to attaintoo much power or impose their will on the country's legal system. (MORE: Egypt's Presidential Front Runners: Who Has the Worse Past?) It's that authoritarian image that has many moderate Egyptians in adilemma two weeks ahead of the big decision. Will they use thecountry's first democratic presidential race to elect a man sosimilar to the one they ousted, or will they risk an Islamistgovernment that may strive to write Egypt's soon-to-be draftedconstitution in a far more conservative way and, thus, change theirway of life? The irony, many unhappy voters are quick to point out, is that thetough choice is unlikely to unite the moderates any more than thefirst round of voting did. Some say they're so dismayed by theoptions that they won't even bother to vote in the next round.Others simply disagree on which option is worse. "Shafik would bejust like Mubarak, nothing more nothing less," says Magdy Mohamed,a small business owner. A Shafik win would wind back all of thedemocratic and judicial gains that Egyptians have accomplished inthe past year and a half, he says. "They might even allow Mubarakto go free. Then the people will go to the streets, and we willdemand our rights all over again," he adds. But Amr Shalabi, auniversity student who says he voted for Amr Moussa, sees it theother way around. "I have no choice now but to choose Shafik," hesays. "We can't allow the Brotherhood to take power." The next two weeks are likely to be tense as candidates square offin a fresh round of campaigning, and Egyptians debate the pros andcons of each. The Muslim Brotherhood has started holding talks withother political parties in an effort to rally a larger constituencythat encompasses liberals, secularists and anti-military activiststo take on Shafik. The group and its candidate, Morsy, havepromised throughout the campaign to embrace policies that promotejustice and equality for all of Egypt's religious and ethnicgroups, even if those policies are founded in Islamic law. ButNafaa says that inter-party talks may force them to make moreconcrete concessions on what their future government will look likeand what kinds of articles wind up in the country's constitution.No matter. Whoever becomes Egypt's next president issure to faceplenty of opposition. With reporting by Sharaf al-Hourani / Cairo VIDEO: Egyptians Gather Together (but Not United) in Tahrir Square. 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