Muslim Brotherhood protests outside Constitutional Court June 14, 2012

Waiting for Godot was easier. There weren’t tens of thousands of protesters waiting for a good reason to riot.

In Cairo’s Tahrir Square, protesters have been gathered for days awaiting the results of the presidential election. They are the supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and their candidate, Mohammed Mursi. Elsewhere in Cairo, a smaller number of Egyptians are gathered. They are sort of supporters of the other guy, former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq. They aren’t thrilled with having a member of the former regime in the presidency, but they are appalled by the alternative. The core of this group is the same as the protesters that removed Hosni Mubarak from power – younger, more liberal, better educated. They do not want an Islamist government, which they fear would impose restrictions on society and end the long-standing tolerance for other forms of Islam and other religious and ethnic groups.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which was banned under Mubarak, had the best organization and the support of out-of-country money to win the Parliamentary election this spring. That election has been declared unconstitutional by the Egyptian Constitutional Court because of the double-listing of some candidates. At stake in these two elections is the future constitution of Egypt.

The people of Egypt have been waiting since Monday for the results of the final round of the Presidential election. The most recent announcement from the military council is that the results will be announced on Sunday, June 24. They claim that they are investigating a few hundred complaints of voting irregularities. The military council has announced a few “tweaks” in their authority, which activists are calling a military coup.

And the Egyptians are also waiting for Hosni Mubarak to finish doing his version of the Zombie Apocalypse. He was “clinically dead” and then he wasn’t. He’s in a coma, and then he’s recovering. And in the meantime, it is virtually impossible to evaluate the damage from the stroke he suffered on June 19^th.

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• Ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak ‘close to death’ – BBC News(bbc.co.uk)

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• Thousands join Egyptian protest(bbc.co.uk)

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