The Egyptian presidential elections, with all the uproar that accompanied them, have ended. Yet the transitional period has not, and in fact has become even more complicated, with all of its threads having become intertwined. Resolving the predicament now requires thinking minds and stances to be taken by all players on the political stage – stances different from those they have put forward or taken throughout the past year and a half. Certainly what preoccupies Egyptians from across the political spectrum today is the future of their country, they who had kept chasing after the goals of an incomplete revolution and after political forces and elites with more separating them than bringing them together. Those standing in line at the elections waited for their turn to exercise their right to vote, while some members of the “Mobtiloon" (“Invalidators" or “Voiders") movement stood at a short distance from the committee center, urging people to invalidate their votes – so as for the next president to be aware that he does not enjoy the support of all Egyptians, that he is coming to the post with a meager majority, and that he must seek to prove to those who boycotted the elections, invalidated their votes or voted against him that they were wrong and that he will truly lay the foundations for building a modern state, after the havoc Egypt was subjected to for decades. The weather was extremely hot, and some of those standing in line preferred to break the boredom and spend some time on side discussions that could perhaps lessen the impact of the heat and the slowness of procedures. Yet most of their discussions were not about who the better candidate was, but rather about scenarios of what the future might bring. One of them reminded those standing in line of the statement made by Deputy Chairman (Deputy Supreme Guide) of the Muslim Brotherhood. Engineer Khairat El-Shater, about the coming revolution, if Marshal Ahmed Shafik were to win, and that it will be less peaceful and more violent. He warned that Shater's words were in tune with the answers given by Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi on every satellite television show he appeared in to the question about the stance the Brotherhood would take if Shafik were to win. Indeed, he always clung to the same answer, signifying that fair elections would only mean that he would win the presidential seat, that there is no possibility at all for his competitor to win, and that the announcement that Shafik has won the seat would mean that the elections had been rigged. The man did not seem to be a supporter or a follower of Shafik's, yet it was clear that he was going to vote for him to “spite" the Brotherhood, as he did not conceal the fact that what the group, its leaders, its prominent figures, its MPs and its activists have done since Mubarak stepped down holds many more contradictions and retractions than clear stances or stances that adhere to the ideas and principles they put forward. What the man was saying did not please some of those standing there, so one of them replied, reminding that the Brotherhood had been persecuted for decades and subjected to torture and repression at the hands of the successive ruling regimes. He thus began to expound the flaws of rulers with military “backgrounds" and put forward contradictions in Shafik's stances. He then began to describe the state the country would be in if the latter were to win the seat – pointing to the fact that the forces active in the street would not allow him to get any work done even if he wanted to, and that the “couch party", or those calling for stability who voted for him, would be of no use to him, since their place is always at home, not in public squares. This man seemed to support Morsi, and to be convinced that he would be the best president for Egypt in the coming phase. Yet he focused, as had the first man, from his own point of view, on the cohesiveness of the state in the future. So did two others, who went beyond the race between Morsi and Shafik, and started to imagine future scenarios. What matters in this issue is that every player on the political stage speaks of the behavior of others and warns against them, without recognizing their own mistakes – as if the state Egypt has reached today had been the work of aliens from outer space!! It is true that some consider the Military Council to have “manipulated" everyone and reached the outcome that would ensure its permanent presence in the future. But why did the others not realize this “plan", if there was such a plan to begin with? Did the Brotherhood learn its “lesson", and understand why the other forces deserted it? Did secular forces realize how many mistakes they had made, and the fact that their divisions sometimes, their struggles always, the opportunism of some of their members, and the narrow-mindedness of others have made them weaker? Did revolutionary forces, their young men and their young women, comprehend that innocence, purity of intention and rosy dreams alone are factors that do not fulfill the goals of a revolution? Those are questions whose answers will shape Egypt in the future and determine the direction it will take, as well as whether it is destined for a new beginning or the end of a revolutionary... rosy dream.
