Madina NewspaperThe movie “Birds of Darkness” showed well-known comedian Adel Imam, as a defender of Mubarak's regime who is in prison trying to catch a ball before his colleague, a defender of Islamist parties, reaches it. But the movie closes with an open-ended scene that leaves the audience wondering who caught the ball. The themes of “Birds of Darkness” are similar to those of the political conflict in Egypt following the Arab Spring with slight differences. The movie is the story of a group of people called the Couch Party, because they sat idly on their couches during the revolution and later decided to join in a contest between the Islamist and secular parties. The first phase of the Egyptian elections has the trappings of the movie when the Couch Party decided to participate in the contest. The Couch Party seems to have popular support for formulating the rules of the new government but the elections showed otherwise. Those who participated in the Egyptian elections were not the people who gathered at Tahrir Square and overthrew the Mubarak regime. The more than 50 million voters who cast their ballots did not reflect the will of the revolutionaries. Their choices were influenced by sectarian bias and by the fear that they could be fined up to 500 Egyptian pounds if they did not vote. The result was that a majority of voters chose a party with an Islamic agenda. The results of the first phase of the polls surprised the Military Council. These results showed that the Council's attempts to marginalize the Islamist parties and to keep them out of the process of drafting a new constitution failed. The Military Council's first announcement, which was welcomed by the Islamist parties and grudgingly accepted by the liberals, was that the elected parliament would be tasked to form a constituent assembly which will draft the new constitution. The Military Council, the liberals, the Copts and a large number of Couch Party members fear that the election results may strengthen the influence of Islamists in the country. Results of the first phase of the legislative elections, which covered nine governorates, gave the Islamist bloc a landslide victory of 62 percent of the vote. This will allow Islamists to control two-thirds of the parliamentary seats. The Military Council administered the electoral process honestly, with the world testifying to this fact, but the poll results are about to put the Military Council inside a box, from which it cannot get free without the possibility of destabilizing the country. If the Military Council decides to stay in the box, it will lose the game and the entire military establishment will become a prisoner of a political decision controlled by sentiments which are not necessarily in the best interest of the country. The nation is as confused as the people who watched the “Birds of Darkness”, noting that nothing seems to have changed. The audience leaves the cinema wondering who will catch the ball in this open
