Clearly the Egyptian judiciary has become the top player in complicating or settling decisive matters connected to the future of the country and the nature of the struggle between the political forces that quarrel and race to reap the fruits of the Revolution. Egyptians fear judicial rulings that would bring the country into a dark tunnel it will not be easy to emerge from. And certainly those who have been excluded from the political scene, by virtue of the amendments recently introduced by the parliament to the law governing the work of political forces, will resort to the judiciary to overturn the law, which means that every date set for achieving the steps of political transformation has been called into question, as a single judicial ruling would suffice to bring everyone back to square one. The steps of drafting the new constitution have been obstructed as a result of the struggle over the formation of the formal body that will be in charge of drafting it. And there are fears of the presidential elections, which are supposed to bring Egypt a president under democratic rule, being obstructed as a result of the struggle over the presidential seat between forces that all claim to be affiliated to the Revolution, to strive to protect it and to have the ability to bring the country out of the dark tunnel they have placed it in. Even if the presidential elections were to take place on the scheduled date, the new president, who would be swearing his constitutional oath on the last day of next June, would be taking his seat without knowing what his powers are. Indeed, the roadmap laid out by the military had required for the constitution to be completed first, determining the system of governance in the country as parliamentary, presidential or mixed, so as for voters to be aware whether they would be voting for a president with absolute powers, or powers that he would share with the government formed by the political party with the majority in parliament, or whether he would be an honorary president. And because the constitution has not yet been written, and is not expected to be completed before the presidential elections, after the work of the constitutive assembly has been obstructed, all of those forces struggle over the presidential seat, to the extent of besieging the headquarters of the judicial commission in charge of the procedures of candidacy and of supervising the presidential elections to force its members to approve the application of a specific candidate or not to exclude another – in addition of course to the displays of power that have been and will be engaged in by every political faction in order to prove to the military and to the other forces competing that it is the most able to stir up the street and then to govern it – or to voice their rejection of the commission's decision to exclude this or that candidate, suggesting and giving statements that such exclusion was “political” and aimed at depriving a political faction of its right to nominate a candidate to compete for the presidential seat, or at supporting another candidate by excluding his strong competitors from the race!! Amid such polarization, the Egyptian people seem perplexed, and it is well known that during times of perplexity chaos can leap to forefront. And regardless of the motives of Lieutenant General Omar Suleiman for running as candidate, and of the uproar, objections and “threats” his decision has caused, it is certain that the situation his decision has resulted in – whether at the state level, such as the People's Assembly and the judiciary, or at the level of the street, such as the Islamists' million-man march last Friday or the Liberals' million-man march next Friday – has given rise to a struggle for power that has emerged, become active and is on its way to escalating to such a degree that it now threatens the presidential elections themselves. Moreover, the media war between the Islamists in particular and revolutionary forces in general on the one hand, and Suleiman and prominent figures of the former regime on the other, only reflects what had remained hidden under the surface for some time, even if it manifested itself to some extent at every major challenge or clash between two sides since the moment Mubarak stepped down. Yet it is certain that the battle of the presidential election has come to represent the climax of the events, and that the decision to exclude Suleiman, and with him Muslim Brotherhood candidate Engineer Khairat El-Shater, has increased the intensity of the battle and did not extinguish its flame. Within hours, a ruling will be issued concerning the grievances of Suleiman and Shater against the decision to exclude them, and each side will mobilize all available means and procedures to shed doubt on the final ruling, amid indications of the likelihood that the commission will confirm its decision to exclude them both, along with the eight others who have left the ring of the competition for various reasons. In any case, a judicial struggle will emerge after a few days, whether regarding the issue of depriving some of practicing politics or that of the presidential elections. And there will remain for all those who lie in wait for others existing opportunities to hinder any progress and to always return to the starting point. Meanwhile, the people hope for the transitional period to end and for them to obtain some “daily life” privileges, so that they may believe that a Revolution has taken place in their country, a regime has fallen, another has emerged, and the slogan “life, freedom, social justice” is on its way to being becoming a reality .
