Cairo - In many ways, Mohammad Mursi, a conservative Islamist, has been an accidental candidate in the race to become Egypt's next president.

It was not until his mentor, Khairat Al Shater, was disqualified from the race that Mursi became the choice of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's most powerful Islamist group.

Some Egyptians deride him as the “spare tire,” a reference to his backup role. He is an engineer and a university professor not known for gravitas or charisma. But Mursi is very much a product of the Brotherhood, having risen through its ranks over the past two decades.

The group faced criticism this spring when it reneged on a promise to stay out of the presidential race.

But by Thursday night, Mursi's apparent success in advancing to a runoff appeared to confirm the Brotherhood's enduring reach and efficiency, unrivaled in Egypt even under Hosni Mubarak, when the group was nominally outlawed.

“It was the Muslim Brotherhood machine that brought him to this point. Mursi has modest political skills with a strong commitment to the Muslim Brotherhood ideology and leadership,” said Khalil Al Anani, an expert on Egyptian Islamist movements at Durham University in Britain.

“He is a shell for the Muslim Brotherhood, and he will sacrifice himself for the sake of the Brotherhood's survival.”

Egyptian analysts say Mursi was chosen because of his loyalty to the organisation’s dominant conservative wing.

During his campaign, Mursi cast himself as God’s candidate, promising that the Quran would be the foundation of a future constitution and vowing to implement a strict version of Islamic law.

In recent weeks, the Brotherhood had appealed to conservative clerics, asking that they urge followers to vote for him.

Mursi has said that he has no plans to revise the peace treaty with Israel for now but has been harsh on Israelis, calling them “killers” because of their treatment of Palestinians.

He has also said that women shouldn’t be allowed to run for president. He told The Washington Post in an interview last year that Saudi Arabia was a good model for Egypt.

“Mursi is not going to betray the more conservative interpretation of the Muslim Brotherhood which now dominates” said Joshua Stacher, an assistant professor of Middle East studies at Kent State University.

Born in the Nile River Delta, Mursi, who is 60, received a doctorate in engineering from the University of Southern California.

He taught until recently at Egypt's Zagazig University.

His rise in the Brotherhood came with the support of Shater, the group's top financier and strategist.

Mursi led the group's parliamentary bloc in Egypt from 2000 to 2005, a period in which it held 20 per cent of legislative seats. The group was shut out of the legislature after elections in the fall of 2010, which was widely rigged by then-president Mubarak's ruling party.

His biography on the Muslim Brotherhood’s English website describes him as a “hard worker,” an academic and a man who was arrested multiple times for his opposition to the Mubarak government, including during the early days of last year’s revolt.

In a recent interview with CNN he struck a moderate note.

“There is no such thing called an Islamic democracy. There is democracy only and democracy is the instrument that is present now. The people are the source of authority,” he said.

“I see it being called the presidency of the Muslim Brotherhood, but it is the presidency of Egypt.”