CAIRO – Egyptians on Saturday voted to choose between a conservative Islamist and Hosni Mubarak’s ex-prime minister in a presidential runoff once billed as the country’s long-awaited shift to democracy but now clouded by pessimism over the future.

Whoever wins after two days of voting, Egypt’s military rulers will remain ultimately at the helm, a sign of how Egypt’s revolution has gone astray 16 months after millions forced the authoritarian Mubarak to step down in the name of freedom.

“We are forced to make this choice. We hate them both,” said Sayed Zeinhom at Cairo’s Boulak el-Dakrour, a densely populated maze of narrow dirt alleys and shoddily built houses. Mahmoud el-Fiqi, waiting with him at a polling center, offered, “Egypt is confused.”