Egypt has finally taken the first real step towards democracy by electing Doctor Mohamed Morsi as the country's President. And despite the wearisome state suffered by the majority of those who followed the conference of the judicial election commission, the detailed description of the voting process and the examination of contestations on the part of the head of the commission, Adviser Farouk Sultan, in the end reassured everyone, put them at ease and proved to them that the Revolution had changed Egypt and the Egyptian people, and that it was no longer easy to falsify the will of the people. It is true that Morsi winning the presidential seat has proved the phenomenal success for the Muslim Brotherhood in waging any elections, but it is also true that the man has become the President of all Egyptians and that he must prove to those who oppose him, and among them Muslim Brotherhood “haters", that achieving real national consensus is his top priority, and must translate in reality the fact that he has become President and that he will not be presided over throughout his presidency. The meaning is clear, and what happened is the beginning of the phase of building, which will quite certainly be more difficult than that of tearing down the pillars of the former regime. Yes, the past still casts its shadow over Egypt and the Egyptian people, but the first elected Egyptian President must look to the future and lead the people towards a beacon of light after decades of darkness. And despite the campaign to shed doubt on the Muslim Brotherhood announcing the results of the presidential elections the moment the process of counting ballots ended, the outcome reached by the judicial election commission is like the beginning of a new era, one in which judges are not affected by smear campaigns – knowing that these are the third elections the Muslim Brotherhood have won under the rule of the Military Council, in addition to the referendum held last March, in which the Brotherhood supported the “Yes" vote and which ended with the result they had wanted. And yet, minutes before the results were announced, members of the Muslim Brotherhood had been chanting in Tahrir Square: “down with the rule of the military"!! Noteworthy is the fact that the ebb and flow of the presidential battle, inasmuch as it has increased the unity of the Islamists, has entrenched division among secular forces. Ever since the end of the parliamentary elections, which witnessed bone-crushing battles between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists, the two parties have closed this chapter and have always chosen the path of concord, cooperation and coordination. Parliament sessions and discussions, as well as the problems involved in the formation of the constitutive assembly, did not witness any disagreements that would undermine their alliance. Even when the Salafists stood in opposition and insisted that the Ganzouri government should resign, the disagreement remained within limits and witnessed no escalation. On the other hand, secular forces, which had, since the day Mubarak stepped down, suffered from division and conflict, found themselves in the midst of the battle of the presidential elections having become fragmented to such a degree as to approach a meltdown or a process of evaporation. Their impact thus became a marginal one, starting from their nominating candidates to compete for the presidential seat, up to their lamenting on the ruins of the results of the first round of voting, after the votes of those affiliated to secular forces had become fragmented among several candidates, and finally the disagreement over supporting Morsi or Shafik, which reached the point of prominent figures throwing their weight behind Morsi while others formed a front in opposition to him. They do not realize that the Muslim Brotherhood, which waged a great battle throughout the whole period of struggle over the presidential seat, is prepared to wage the next parliamentary elections, even if they were to be held tomorrow, not three months after the new constitution has been declared, and that the Salafist movement has also gained effective political skills and enjoys clear popular support in different parts of the country, while secular forces, which preoccupied themselves with supporting Morsi to spite Shafik, or supporting the latter to take revenge on the former, do not have the capabilities or the skills that would allow them to compete against the Islamists in the next elections. Thus, the leaders of Liberal, Leftist and Nasserist movements will return to yell in front of cameras and spotlights, and on satellite television, complaining of the Islamist movement's use of mosques, and of the distribution of rice, oil and sugar by the Muslim Brotherhood to the voting public, thus justifying their failure without holding themselves accountable for their blatant mistakes, which were among the main reasons for the state in which Egypt now finds itself and the polarization that now threatens everyone, as well as for the fact that the majority of Egyptians have abandoned the Revolution and have sometimes declared regretting to have taken part in it. It is no secret that Morsi's performance in the first few months of his presidency could “wipe clean" the mistakes committed by the Muslim Brotherhood in Parliament, and guard from memory what has become entrenched in people's minds of their desire to seize power and exclude others. The relationship between Morsi and the Military Council remains one of the problems he will have to deal with. And doubtless the neutral stance taken by “the military" regarding the results of the presidential elections, as well as the fact that it has avoided falling into the trap of fraud, will reduce the tension between it and the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet this remains a secondary matter, as the future of Egypt requires resolving problems that are more important and that would be more useful for the people, they who carried out the Revolution.
