Support for the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate almost doubled in an opinion poll published in Al- Ahram newspaper two weeks before Egypt’s presidential election, while the two longstanding front-runners ceded ground.

Mohamed Mursi, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, rose to fourth place with 7 percent, according to the weekly poll conducted by the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. It interviewed 1,200 people between April 27 and May 1, and cited a margin of error of three percentage points.

Former Arab League chief Amre Moussa slipped to 39 percent from 41 percent a week before, and second-placed Abdel-Moneim Aboul Fotouh, an Islamist who parted ways with the Brotherhood earlier in the year, fell 3 percentage points to 24 percent. Ahmed Shafik, prime minister in the waning days of Hosni Mubarak’s government, jumped to 17 percent from 12 percent.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tarek El-Tablawy in Cairo at teltablawy@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net.