Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei went to the Ittihadiyya Palace to meet with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, upon the latter's suggestion. Though the meeting was bilateral, the visitor felt others were present too. He saw behind the president the shadow of the Murshid – the Muslim Brotherhood's ‘Supreme Guide' – Mohammed Badie, and the shadow of his deputy Khairat al-Shater. This kind of shadows is suspicious indeed. The visitor feared that the president's real authority and reference came from the Murshid, and not the constitution. For this reason, ElBaradei told our newspaper "I met the president, I spoke with him, but I despaired of him." In turn, Hamdeen Sabahi went to the Ittihadiyya Palace. The insistence of the shadows to attend the meeting reminded him of what happened between him and Morsi before the run-off round of the presidential election. Hamdeen had obtained nearly five million votes in the first round, but he was out of the race. Morsi wanted to win over this bloc to guarantee his victory against Ahmed Shafik. Hamdeen Sabahi asked Morsi a difficult question; "In case you win, will you be a president who is independent from the will of the Muslim Brotherhood?" Morsi could not answer, and responded by offering Sabahi the post of vice president. Sabahi declined. Amr Moussa also went to the Ittihadiyya Palace and met the president and his two shadows. After the meeting and throughout his observations of the president's conduct, Moussa could not conceal his fear for Egypt that begot Taha Hussein and Naguiib Mafhouz, and played an enlightening role in the life of its nation. He feared for Egypt's spirit. This happened days before June 30, which the three men agreed was a landmark day. They understood that there is no choice but to hold early presidential elections to rescue the country from Morsi's term, but it was clear that they also wanted to salvage Egypt from the great shadow looming over Morsi, that is, the Murshid's shadow. A journalist by virtue of their work must not fall under the spell of the oppositionists. For this reason, I went to the headquarters of the Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm. There, I asked the vice president of the party Dr. Essam el-Erian whether he had ever expected that President Hosni Mubarak would be ousted, and that Egypt would go on to live under the rule of a Brotherhood president. I liked his answer; he said, "I am confident that this dream did not occur to any Egyptian. Any Egyptian who tells you that he expected the revolution to succeed, Hosni Mubarak to be deposed, and the presidency to go to Mohamed Morsi would be lying. Had the age of miracles not ended, I would have told you that we were living exactly in that age." Erian was not concerned about June 30. His confidence prompted him to say that Morsi would not only finish his term, but may also win a second term. He was confident and reassured, and invited us both, my colleague Mohamed Salah and me, to the office of Saad Katatni, the party chairman, where we also could not detect any concern. The January revolution of 2011 caught the Murshid by surprise, just like it caught most senior general back then, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, by surprise. The two men acted under the impact of that surprise. But the voters' keenness on excluding the shadow of President Mubarak and his generals caused them to be ensnared by Morsi and the Murshid's shadow. Ultimately, Morsi could not undo the impression that "the Murshid was the president's president." His mistakes accumulated and the media did not show him mercy. The concerns of millions of Egyptians about "al-Akhwana" – the imposition of the Brotherhood's ideology on state and society – turned June 30 into a broad-based uprising against the president and the shadows lurking at his palace. In January 2011, Tantawi felt that the army had to join in with the public squares. In June 2013, Lt. General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi felt that the army must reconcile itself with the masses and accommodate them. It was thus that a massive uprising and a quasi-coup transpired. But the Muslim Brotherhood has refused to come to terms with what has happened. The Islamist group has refused to stop and pore over the reasons that prompted millions to descent to the public squares, to chant against the Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood refused to acknowledge the millions who signed the Tamarrod petition. The group's members opted instead to emphasize the actions of al-Sisi, to portray the Brotherhood as an oppressed victim. When the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court in the country Counselor Adli Mansour was sworn in as president, they elected to just see the shadow of al-Sisi behind him. What Egypt witnessed yesterday was indeed troubling. Pushing the country into the tunnel of infighting, between the Murshid's shadow and the general's shadow, will have dire consequences. The Brotherhood made a gamble when they brought the Murshid's shadow to the presidential palace. But toppling an elected president in what is half a coup and half a revolution also entails a gamble. There is no other solution but to quickly exit this tunnel, to reach an Egypt that lives under a constitution compatible with its spirit, and an elected president who is not shackled in the palace by the Murshid's shadow or the general's shadow.
