Everything about Egypt's revolution has been unexpected, and the first-round results in the country's first-ever competitive presidential election are no different.
The rise of former President Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister, Gen. Ahmed Shafiq, who will enter the presidential runoff alongside the Muslim Brothers (MB) candidate Mohammed Morsi, has raised eyebrows across the political spectrum. So did the meteoric rise of the Nasserist candidate Hamdeen Sabahi to third place, and the fourth-place finish of Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, who was backed by liberals and hardline Salafi Islamists alike.
Egypt's voters overwhelmingly chose the revolution over the old regime, and shattered the myth that the push for change is an urban, middle-class, Cairo-based phenomenon: the eight revolutionary candidates received more than 16.4 million votes. But their failure to unite on a single platform directly benefited Shafiq, who unexpectedly won 5.9 million votes (assuming no election-rigging).