Reuters file

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak sits inside a cage in a courtroom in Cairo on June 2, 2012.

CAIRO, Egypt - In June of 2012, Egypt held its breath in anticipation of the court verdict against former President Hosni Mubarak, toppled by a revolution in which hundreds died at the hands of the security forces. 

Amr Nabil / AP file

Egyptians celebrate in Cairo as they hear from a car radio that ousted president Hosni Mubarak has been sentenced to 25 years in prison.

They crowded around TV sets in coffee shops and cheered when the judge sentenced him to the maximum of 25 years in prison. But demonstrators also poured into streets across the country with many wanting to see the former autocratic leader sentenced to death instead.

What a difference 10 months makes. Ahead of his retrial on Saturday, social media was virtually silent on the subject and newspaper coverage was scant.

On the streets of Cairo, nine months of rule by Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, rising crime and a sputtering economy have led some to conclude that the revolution’s treatment of the former leader was too harsh.

“Even if Mubarak was bad, I don’t like my president to be in prison like this. He shouldn’t be treated the way he was after the revolution,” café owner Abdel Nabi al Shaer, 48, said.  “We should remember the good things, living in peace for 30 years. I don’t have to remember the bad.”  

A journalist who asked that her name not be used, went even further. “I would like to tell Mubarak we are sorry,” she said.

Mubarak, a staunch ally of the United States, was charged as an accessory to murder for failing to stop the killing of more than 800 people during the January 25 Revolution, as the movement that toppled him became known.

A thief or a job creator?
He was the first ruler overthrown by the Arab Spring movements to stand trial in person, appearing in court in a hospital bed. After his sentence, Mubarak challenged the ruling and a retrial was ordered in January.

Taha Belal / NBC News

Florist Khalid Ramadan wanted Mubarak set free. "Now I can't walk with my children on the street,

Mubarak, now 84,  is also being investigated for squandering public funds. His sons, Gamal and Alaa, face retrial on charges of financial corruption.

One of Mubarak's lawyers, Yousri Abdul Razak, said he was confident his client would be cleared.

"President Mubarak asked for the police to show patience to the protesters," he said, adding that there was no evidence that Mubarak asked security forces to put down the demonstrations. 

Florist Khalid Ramadan agreed Mubarak should be set free.

“Now I can’t walk with my children on the street,” the 30-year-old said. “Since Morsi took over I haven’t had any work. Hosni was a thief but there was work. I have three kids and I can’t feed them.”

But anger toward Mubarak remains. Fruit seller Mohamed Abded Hamid said he thought the former leader deserved the ultimate punishment.

Taha Belal / NBC News

Fruit seller Mohamed Abded Hamid said he thought Mubarak deserved the ultimate punishment. "I hope (Mubarak) will get the death sentence because (he) oppressed a lot of people,

“I hope [Mubarak] will get the death sentence because [he] oppressed a lot of people,” he said. “If they [the Mubarak regime] hadn’t, there wouldn’t have been demonstrations in the first place.”

University student David Azer poured scorn on Mubarak and Morsi equally.

“I am not paying attention and am fed up because Morsi is doing nothing. He is not the president we want. Mubarak should be imprisoned for life because he did a lot of bad things.” 

Related:

Egyptians warn Morsi is no friend to the United States

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© Stringer Egypt / Reuters / Reuters

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak inside a cage in a courtroom in Cairo during his 2012 trial.

Former dictator Hosni Mubarak has won an appeal against his conviction for killing protesters during the Arab Spring uprising and will face a retrial.

A court in Cairo accepted an appeal by the ousted president and his former interior minister, Habib al-Adli, who were sentenced to life in prison last year over the 2011 killings.

"The retrial will be based on the same evidence used in the previous trial. No new evidence will be added to the case," Mohamed Abdel Razek, one of Mubarak's lawyers, told Reuters.

Related: Egyptians warn Morsi is no friend to the United States

The court has also ordered a retrial of al-Adli's aides.

Mubarak, who is 84 and in poor health, was not in court but supporters there cheered the verdict, Al Jazeera reported.

"Wake up, wake up, Egyptians…Egypt has been sold under the name of religion," shouted one man in Arabic, referring to the country’s new ruler, Islamic Brotherhood figurehead Mohammed Morsi.

Mubarak’s sentencing in June 2012 was cheered by crowds, but later in the year there was dismay that his increasing ill-health could allow him to avoid serving his 25-year sentence in prison.

CAIRO, Egypt -- Egyptian officials told NBC News that former president Hosni Mubarak would be moved back to prison on Monday, saying an improvement in his health meant he no longer needed to stay in a military hospital.

Mubarak, sentenced to life in prison over the killing of protesters in the uprising that ended his rule, was moved from the medical wing of Tora prison to a hospital last month following reports of a deterioration in his health.

Mubarak was moved from prison to a military hospital in June after a health crisis. At the time, senior officers and military sources gave various accounts of the 84-year-old's condition, including that he was in a coma and on life support.

Egyptian Christians snub Clinton, claim US backs Islamists

Adel al-Saeed, the assistant prosecutor and spokesman for the prosecutor's office, said a medical committee formed to review Mubarak's condition had decided his health was stable enough that he did not need advanced hospital care.

Sentenced on June 2 for his failure to protect demonstrators, Mubarak has been portrayed as being in poor health by officials for the past year. He was wheeled in to court during his trial on a hospital stretcher.

According to AFP, Mubarak's health deteriorated after his transfer to the hospital, with doctors defibrillating him twice in June. Reports also said he suffered from bouts of depression, high blood pressure and shortness of breath.

US role in post-Mubarak Egypt still unclear

Many Egyptians have been skeptical. Others suspect fellow officers, who pushed him aside to appease the protesters, of conniving to give him a more comfortable confinement.

NBC News' Ayman Mohyeldin and Reuters contributed to this report. 

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EPA

Egyptian president-elect Mohamed Morsi spent seven years in the United States, from 1978 to 1985, as an engineering student and then assistant professor. Two professors remembered him fondly as a quiet man who was not particularly political or religious.

In the days since Mohamed Morsi was named president-elect of Egypt, two narratives have emerged about the 60-year-old engineer.

The first paints Morsi as an anti-American, anti-woman, anti-Christian and anti-Israel enforcer for the Muslim Brotherhood who will, despite his claims, turn back the clock in Egypt.

The second narrative, supported by two engineering professors from Egypt who knew Morsi when he was an engineering student and professor in California for seven years from 1978 to 1985, depicts a quiet, hardworking young man more driven by studies than politics.

Professor Nagi El Naga, who knew Morsi as an assistant professor in engineering at California State University Northridge, described his former colleague as kind, open-minded and conservative. At the time, Morsi was 30, with a wife and two young, U.S.-born children. His wife covered her hair with a veil; El Naga’s wife, a professor, did not.

“He was somewhat more conservative than me as far as religion, but there’s a difference between being conservative and being extremist,” said El Naga, who still teaches at Northridge. “He was open-minded. We had differences but these differences never prevented us from sharing dinner and things like that.

“He was not irrational,” El Naga continued. “He was sincere in what he believed in.”

Morsi has been described as the accidental candidate; in April, he replaced Khairat El-Shater, the Muslim Brotherhood’s more charismatic and effusive choice who was deemed ineligible to run. Morsi became the chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party, a group with ties to the Brotherhood that emerged after the 2011 revolution. He was an independent member of parliament from 2000 to 2005.

Egypt's Morsi goes from prisoner to president

He won the election with 51 percent of the vote, edging out Ahmed Shafiq, who was viewed as an extension of former President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Mubarak resigned in February of 2011 after 30 years in control.  

Affable, hardworking
Professor Farghalli Mohamed of University of California said he was surprised to see his former graduate student join the Muslim Brotherhood. He said Morsi prayed five times a day and observed Ramadan, but did not discuss religion or politics, nor did he grow a light beard, as did the more devout Muslim students.

Rather, Mohamed remembers Morsi as an affable, hardworking and unmarried young man who joined his family at their home and on outings to the Magic Mountain amusement park.

Beaten candidate, under graft probe, leaves Egypt

“I saw students from the Middle East at the time whose views were very conservative, who didn’t like what they saw in America in terms of social values -- they didn’t like the dress code of women,” Mohamed said. “When you visit them in their house, they are very conservative. Usually you don’t see their wives. But Mohamed Morsi, he met with my wife, and my wife doesn’t (wear a veil).”

In 1985, Morsi traveled to Egypt and never returned to California.

El Naga and Mohamed, who have lost touch with Morsi, have differing theories on why Egypt's president-elect joined the Brotherhood.

Mohamed believes Morsi would not have joined the Brotherhood had he returned to Cairo to teach, rather than taking a position at a small university in the more conservative northern part of Egypt.

El Naga, however, believes that Morsi joined the Brotherhood because he shared one of their values: to fight corruption in the Mubarak regime.   

Morsi quits Muslim Brotherhood after election

When El Naga heard Morsi speak on Sunday, he said he believed the new president’s claims that he would unify the country.

“When I saw him talking it brought me back to many years back,” El Naga said. “I felt he was the same person I was with 30 years ago.”

Mohamed was less enthusiastic.

“I feel sad for Morsi,” he said. “He was elected as president -- that is great -- but at the moment it is vague for him. He has no constitution on which to rely on to govern the country. There is no Congress, and then the military council is still in control.”

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Egypt’s state news agency said former President Hosni Mubarak is "clinically dead" after multiple strokes, but a lawyer for Mubarak told NBC News early Wednesday that the ousted leader was clinging to life.

Mubarak, 84, had reportedly suffered multiple strokes and heart failure and had been moved late Tuesday to a military hospital from the prison hospital where he was being treated. He was reported to be on life support.

His health has been deteriorating since 3 p.m. (9 a.m. ET), his lawyers told NBC. He suffered two or three strokes and his heart had to be restarted with a defibrillator, they said.

Video on Hayat TV showed an ambulance taking Mubarak to Maadi military hospital, the same one where his predecessor Anwar Sadat was declared dead more than 30 years ago after being gunned down by Islamic militants.

"He is in really bad shape," a U.S. official told NBC News.

The confusion over the state of health of the former leader came as his longtime opponents in the Muslim Brotherhood claimed victory of their candidate, Mohammed Morsi, over Ahmed Shafiq, a candidate drawn from the military elite in a presidential election held over the weekend.

An 18-day uprising ended Mubarak’s 30-year rule on Feb. 11, 2011, sparking months of social unrest and political turmoil.

Speculation about Mubarak's health had swirled since he was jailed effectively for life on June 2 for failing to halt the killings of hundreds of the protesters who toppled him.

Slideshow: Hosni Mubarak

Philippe Bouchon / AFP - Getty Images

The President of Egypt for nearly 30 years, Mubarak was an advocate for peace in the Middle East and a major U.S. ally, but Egyptians eventually grew tired of his corrupt regime and he was ousted in a popular revolt in February 2011.

Launch slideshow

He had been moved to Tora prison hospital from a plush military hospital where he was held during the 10-month trial.

Critics had said his illness was being exaggerated to win public sympathy. Egypt's official news agency earlier this month denied reports that Mubarak had slipped into a coma.

Slideshow: Life of Hosni Mubarak

Egypt's prison authority on June 11 approved a request to let Mubarak's eldest son, Alaa, who is being held at the jail pending trial, stay close to him in the prison hospital because of his deteriorating health, security sources said.

His youngest son, Gamal, once viewed as heir-apparent to the presidency and who is also detained pending trial, was moved closer to him earlier.

Mubarak’s wife, Suzanne, and the wives of his two sons visited him earlier this month and demanded he be moved to a hospital outside prison.

This report from Charlene Gubash, NBC News Cairo producer, includes information from Reuters and The Associated Press.

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Mohammed Al-Law / AP

Officials say former President Hosni Mubarak's health has deteriorated in the three days since a court sentenced him to life imprisonment in connection to the killing of hundreds of protesters.

Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian president whose ouster triggered revolutions across the Middle East, has become dangerously ill, security officials told the Associated Press.

Officials at the Torah prison south of Cairo, where Mubarak, 84, is being held, said he suffered from shock and was experiencing breathing problems. They said Mubarak needed a respirator five times on Wednesday.

Mubarak, who had been in power for 30 years, was sentenced to life on Saturday after he was convicted for his role in the killing of hundreds of protesters during the uprising that ultimately swept him out of office.

Egypt’s state news agency said Mubarak had been in a military hospital during his trial before being flown to prison. On Wednesday, the news agency said he suffered from nervous shock. He spent more than two hours on the aircraft that transported him to prison, saying he was suffering from health problems. 

Mubarak has spent the last 10 months in private hospital rooms, according to independent news reports cited by The New York Times, but has been healthy enough to swim every day and go for walks. 

Egypt’s Tahrir protesters take on Mubarak’s man

After Mubarak was sentenced -- and his sons were exonerated -- protesters descended on Tahrir Square, the focal point of the 2011 revolution to speak out against the former president's chosen replacement, Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak's appointed prime minister.

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Yasmina Muslemany / NBC News

Protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Tuesday.

CAIRO, Egypt --The crowds of Egyptian protesters streaming into Cairo's Tahrir Square under flowing party flags on Tuesday night may have fallen short of expectations in terms of numbers but they did not lack anger and defiance.

Initially billed as a "Million Man (March) of Justice," the demonstrations were directed at presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq. Former President Hosni Mubarak had appointed Shafiq to the prime minister position in the dying days of his regime, forever tainting Shafiq with the brutal crackdown that killed more than 800 protesters in 18 days.

“Shafiq will never return (legally) through the ballot boxes,” declared protester Amr Sayed. Sayed does not belong to a political party but says he will vote for the Muslim Brotherhood candidate to prevent a Shafiq victory. 

“There will be change,” Sayed said. “Forty percent of Egypt is young men. If Shafiq wins, we will overturn everything into fire and destruction. He can only win through fraud with the help of the military.” 

Egypt protesters torch candidate's headquarters

Yasmina Muslemany / NBC News

Housewife Nasreen Ahmed demonstrates at Cairo's Tahrir Square against presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq.

Mostafa al Shimi, a retired military officer at Tahrir Square, said he had to follow orders throughout his career, whether right or wrong. Now a civilian, al Shimi wants a civilian president -- Shafiq, however, is a former air force general. 

Shafiq “can’t go anywhere without guards surrounding him,” al-Shimi said. “We feel that we are in danger with Shafiq, the military council and the deeply rooted regime. They are fomenting a counter-revolution.”   

A protester at the square screamed in rage, “If Ahmed Shafiq wins even without fraud, we don’t want him. We are staying here. Kill us like you killed our brothers; we are staying here.” 

A teacher, her face and body enveloped in a black veil despite the heat, said she lost a cousin to the revolution. She said she deeply mistrusts Shafiq. 

Yasmina Muslemany / NBC News

Rawda Al-Araby, an Egyptian medical student, demonstrates in Cairo's Tahrir Square for a retrial of former President Hosni Mubarak.

During the revolution "Shafiq said, 'Let the protesters stay in Tahrir and we will bring them candy,'" said the teacher, who would not identify herself. "The candies came in the form of bullets that killed our children, brothers and martyrs." 

Video: Judge hands Mubarak stiff sentence

Shafiq’s supporters believe he will restore law and order, but the veiled school teacher worries that security will come at a price. 

“Shafiq says he will restore order within 24 hours,” she said. “That means he has the power to set the regime’s thugs on us.”

New revolution?
Protesters at Tahrir Square see a Shafiq victory as a return to the Mubarak days. 

Nasreen Ahmed said it isn’t fair that Shafiq, the former prime minister, is running.

“People died in the streets to remove the old regime,” Ahmed said. “It wasn’t so the old prime minister could become the new president.” She hopes the spontaneous demonstrations that have filled Tahrir Square since Saturday will herald a new revolution. 

Can Egypt's voters force candidates to compromise?

Yasmina Muslemany/ NBC News

A demonstrator in Tahrir Square who identified herself as an Egyptian citizen said she came to protest against candidacy of Ahmed Shafiq, former president Hosni Mubarak's former prime minister.

Egyptians across the country were incensed by the Saturday verdict that sentenced Mubarak and his Interior Minister to life imprisonment but exonerated his two sons and six Ministry of Interior officials. Although anger at the verdicts prompted large numbers of demonstrators to take to the streets, it is deep-seated hatred of Shafiq that is keeping them there.    

“We will stay here until the election results come in,” promised al Shimi, the retired military officer. “When Morsi (the Muslim Brotherhood candidate) wins, we can tell him we are the ones who put him there.  We will tell him, ‘Tahrir put you in office, now what are you going to do for the people who will hold you accountable?’” 

Tahrir Square occupied as anger grows over Mubarak verdict

Many are voting for Mohamed Morsi because they believe he will be more susceptible to protesters’ demands than Shafiq. Others say Morsi is as untrustworthy as Shafiq.   

“I don’t like either of them; they are both the same,” said medical student Rawda al Araby. “I won’t give my vote to either of them in the elections.

Mechanical engineer Ahmed el Beguirmy, 27, said he would also advocate a second revolution but he does not believe this is it. 

What would trigger another revolution?

Beguirmy said that would happen if the military government refuses to hand over power.

Yasmina Muslemany/ NBC News

Mostafa al-Shimi, a retired military officer, protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square against the candidacy of Ahmed Shafiq, former President Hosni Mubarak's one-time prime minister, who finished second in the first round of the presidential race.

Taha Belal contributed to this report.  

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Updated at 7:20 p.m. ET: CAIRO - Egypt's ousted ruler Hosni Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison Saturday for complicity in the killings of protesters who eventually overthrew him. He could have received the death penalty.

Presiding judge Ahmed Refaat also sentenced his former interior minister, Habib el-Adli, to life in prison on the same charge. But Mubarak's two sons -- Gamal and Alaa -- were acquitted on corruption charges.   

The mixed ruling set off street protests and by nightfall, a large crowd of up to 10,000 was back in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the birthplace of the uprising, to vent anger over the acquittals. Similar protesters were held in other cities, including the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria and Suez on the Red Sea.

On Sunday morning, dozens of young Egyptians stormed into the campaign headquarters of presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq for the Fayoum area south of Cairo on Sunday, the state's Al-Ahram news website reported.

All the headquarters contents including furniture and computer devices were destroyed, Al-Ahram online said. It was the second attack on Shafiq's headquarters in few days.

Shafiq was the last prime minister of deposed president Hosni Mubarak and his success in getting through to a second round of Egypt's presidential election has angered opponents who see him as a symbol of a regime that they took to the streets to oust in mass protests.

Shafiq on Saturday said Mubarak's sentence proved no one was above the law.

"Those rulings certainly disprove any claims that a presidential candidate can reproduce a ruling system that has ended," he said, responding to critics who say Shafiq would revive the old order.

Protesters disagreed.

"Justice was not served," said Ramadan Ahmed, whose son was killed on Jan. 28, the bloodiest day of last year's uprising. "This is a sham," he said outside the courthouse.

Protesters chanted: "A farce a farce, this trial is a farce" and "The people want execution of the murderer."

NBC News, citing state TV, said Mubarak was taken to Tora prison after the court hearing. Egypt TV quoted unidentified medical sources as saying Mubarak had suffered a health crisis as he arrived at the prison and was being treated in the helicopter that transported him and then in the prison hospital. 

Asmaa Waguih / Reuters

Pictures of people who died during last year's revolution are seen in front of security forces next to the courthouse in Cairo where former president Hosni Mubarak will heard the verdict in his trial Saturday.

The Ahram Online newspaper reported Saturday Mubarak, wearing sunglasses, a beige top and black trousers, was wheeled in to the police academy for the hearing as he lay on a stretcher.

Judge: 30 years of tyranny
The judge said the uprising ended 30 years of tyranny, saying the people who protested against poverty and oppression were peaceful, according to the newspaper.

Mubarak, 84, was acquitted of the graft charges he faced. His life sentence -- which in Egypt typically is 25 years but in Mubarak's case really means the rest of his life -- was for failing to prevent the killing of 900 protesters.

Mubarak's ex-security chief, Habib el-Adly, also was convicted of complicity in the killings and received a life sentence.

A statement issued by the Muslim Brotherhood's presidential campaign team called for a retrial.

"The public prosecutor did not carry out its full duty in gathering adequate evidence to convict the accused for killing protesters," said Yasser Ali, official spokesman for the Mohamed Mursi campaign. 

Others also expressed discontent.

"Initial, fleeting satisfaction, followed by disappointment, and then anger," said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center and a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, in a message on Twitter. 

"I'd think this verdict would spur greater consensus between Islamists ... and liberals," he added.

'Filled with anger'
Nader Bakkar, the spokesman of Al-Nour Salafist Party, said in a tweet translated by Ahram Online that Egyptians were "filled with anger and disappointment."

But some reacted with joy at the news.

Soha Saeed, the wife of one of about 850 people killed in the street revolt that toppled Mubarak on Feb. 11, 2011, shouted: "I'm so happy. I'm so happy."  

Can voters force candidates to compromise in Egypt run-off?

Few Egyptians expected Mubarak would go to the gallows, even if some thought that was what he deserved. Protesters have often hung his effigy from lamp posts since he fell on February 11, 2011. 

Runoff could take Egypt's voters on one of two very different paths

NBC News' Charlene Gubash, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Updated at 11:15 a.m. ET: A dying man came "for my children," a college student said he finally felt "like a citizen of this country," and an undecided voter was just happy to take part in "a historic" moment.

Egyptians turned out in droves Wednesday to take part in the country's first-ever democratic election of its leader.

Fifteen months after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak during the Arab Spring uprising, BBC News reported lines began growing at many polling stations shortly after they opened at 8 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET).

"It's a very big day. This is a real great moment for the Egyptians to change,” a woman waiting to vote in Cairo told the BBC. Another in the line was asked how long she’d been waiting to vote; she laughed and said, "30 years."

Yasmina Muslemany / NBC News

Law student Shaimaa Magdy (left), said she was voting for leftist Hamdeen Sabahy because "I want someone new, with new ideas, I want him to care about the youth, to care about the economy and the poor." Iman Moustafa backed the same candidate saying he was "honest in his words and actions; he was jailed a lot and he worked a lot against injustice."

President Jimmy Carter is in the country as part of an international delegation monitoring the election, the UPI news service reported.

"Egyptians cheer "Jimmy Carter! Jimmy Carter! Welcome to ‪#Egypt‬!" When former President comes out of polling station," BBC correspondent Lyse Doucet said in a tweet.

A police officer in Cairo said voters had been asking him all morning "Who do you like?" But he said "I tell them, 'You must decide,'" the BBC reported on Twitter.

Medhat Ibrahim lined up to vote in a poor district south of Cairo despite having cancer.

"I can die in a matter of months, so I came for my children, so they can live," he tearfully told The Associated Press.

More photos: Egyptians turn out in droves to vote in historic election

Mubarak ruled Egypt for some 30 years – earning the nickname “Pharoah” – and elections during that time were thinly attended and any result was a foregone conclusion.

The election will determine who will take over from generals who have overseen a transition marred by violence, protests and political deadlock. They were due to formally hand over power by July 1.

Yasmina Muslemany / NBC News

Accountant Hossam Mohamed Diab (left) said he was voting for Islamist candidate Mohamed Mursi, saying he was "well educated" and has "a lot of life experience" "Hopefully he can build consensus between the people's assembly and the ruling authorities," Diab said. Khaled Ahmed backed leftist Hamdeen Sabahy, saying "he's one of us, he's one of us who was in the square [Tahrir Square during anti-Mubarak protests]."

The BBC reported that a police sergeant died after being shot during clashes between rival supporters in Rawdh al-Faraj Tuesday evening and said in a tweet that 10 people had been injured in election-related incidents, citing the ambulance authority.

Egypt's elections: A struggle between secularism and political Islam

Some voters held out hope the change to a democracy would bring profound change.

"We want to live better, like human beings," Ibrahim, a 58-year-old government employee, told the AP.

“Our vote will make Egypt's voice in the Arab world ring loud and clear," Saad Abed Raboh, a civil servant in his mid-50s voting in Alexandria, told Reuters. "For 30 years Egypt's vote was muted, but now it will be heard because Egyptians will choose their president."

Photoblog: Egypt prepares for the post-Mubarak presidential era

And Ahmed Ali, a student of pharmaceutical studies in Alexandria, Egypt's second city, told Reuters that “the experience [of voting] is quite new and makes me feel like a citizen of this country."

But others simply came along to take part in a momentous occasion.

"I will vote today, no matter what, it is a historic thing to do, although I don't really know who I will vote for," Mahmoud Morsy, 23, told Reuters. He then said he would probably pick the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate, Mohamed Mursi.

Amr Abdallah Dalsh / Reuters

Egyptian presidential candidate Amr Moussa (second right) waits in line before casting his vote at a polling station in Cairo Wednesday.

The wide-open election pits Islamists against men who served under deposed leader Hosni Mubarak.

NYT: Egypt votes in historic election as crime wave, not revolution, becomes main topic 

Voters were blitzed by three weeks of official campaigning, which ended on Sunday, and Egypt held its first U.S.-style televised presidential debate. Newspapers carried interviews and campaign ads. Banners and posters festoon the streets.

Egypt's first televised presidential debate thrills viewers

Although official campaigning was over, candidates made a final push to get out the vote. Half a dozen minibuses plastered with "Yes to Amr Moussa" – the former Arab League chief bidding for office – offered free rides to polling stations.

None of the 12 candidates is expected to get more than half the votes and win outright in the first round on Wednesday and Thursday, and a run-off between the top two is likely in June.

Read more on Egypt from NBC correspondents

Whoever wins faces a huge task to deliver changes that Egyptians expect to relieve a grim economic outlook. The military that was a pillar of Mubarak's rule is likely to remain a powerful political force for years.

The army, whose senior ranks control extensive commercial interests, insists it does not want to hang onto power.

"With these elections, we will have completed the last step in the transitional period," General Mohamed el-Assar told a news conference on the eve of voting.

The West, long wary of Islamists, and Israel, worried about its 33-year-old peace treaty with Egypt, are watching to see if proponents of political Islam add to their gains after sweeping most seats in a parliamentary vote that ended in January.

Many Gulf states are concerned about who will lead the regional heavyweight after their long-time ally Mubarak was ousted. Their conservative monarchies have so far emerged from a wave of Arab uprisings relatively unscathed.

The Brotherhood's Mursi, trying to allay such worries, pledged in a final rally on Sunday that "we will not export our revolution to anyone.”

Video: A new role for women in post-Mubarak Egypt

Mursi was pitched into the race at the last minute after the Brotherhood's first-choice candidate was ruled out. He may lack charisma, but he can rely on the Brotherhood's vote machine.

Among the voters Wednesday, Mahmoud Ahmed told NBC News that he backed Mursi "because his project is Islamic." "I hope that someone comes and governs us with the book of God. We won't find justice except in the book," Ahmed said.

Mursi's rivals include Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh, an Islamist who has drawn support ranging from liberals to hardline Salafi Muslims; Moussa, who was foreign minister before moving to the Arab League and has strong name recognition; and Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak's last prime minister, who like his former boss, once commanded the air force.

Nabeya Ahmed told NBC News he backed Moussa. "They say he's good and he knows politics well," Ahmed said.

A late surge helped Hamdeen Sabahy, a leftist inspired by Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose "Free Officers" overthrew King Farouk in 1952 and set up the system that has put military men in the presidency for the past 60 years.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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