"Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled that the Islamist-led parliament must be immediately dissolved..."

"... while also blessing the right of Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister to run for president, escalating a battle for power between the remnants of the toppled order and rising Islamists."

The high court, packed with sympathizers of the ousted president, appears to be engaged in a frontal legal assault on the Muslim Brotherhood,
the once outlawed organization whose members swept to power in Parliament the spring and whose candidate was the front-runner for the presidency as well. The presidential election runoff is scheduled to go ahead Saturday and Sunday.

The ruling — which critics said amounted to a backdoor coup — means that whoever emerges as the winner of the runoff scheduled for this weekend will take power without the check of a sitting parliament and could even exercise some influence over the election of a future parliament. It vastly compounds the stakes in the presidential race, raised questions about the military rulers’ commitment to democracy and made uncertain the future of a constitutional assembly recently formed by the parliament as well.