In the early days of World War II, French Premier Paul Reynaud remarked to General Philippe Pétain: “You take Hitler for another Wilhelm I, the old man who seized Alsace-Lorraine from us and that was all. But Hitler is Genghis Khan.” Reynaud’s subtext was clear: if you wish to use the ‘history repeating itself’ line, use the right history.

The concept of revolutionary legitimacy became predominant in the early days of Arab revolutions, reflecting a unified popular will to bring down existing regimes, and their constitutions.

Since Morsy assumed his responsibilities as president, public opinion has gathered across three camps. A supporting camp, another pushing him to fulfill his revolutionary promises and hoping he would fail, and a third confused camp that may have secretly regretted taking to the streets on 25 January 2011, after seeing that Egypt’s political fate ended in a catch-22 between Mubarak’s regime and an Islamist party.

It is a mistake to think that democracy is the solution for all our problems. When Winston Churchill said that democracy was the worst political systems but there is no better system, he meant that what democracy gives us is nothing more than a peaceful way to resolve problems but the solutions themselves depend on people’s innovation, consensus and agreement. More so, achieving democracy itself is a path of pain and more wounds.

Teetering on the brink of debt default, the eurozone economies have once again moved center-stage in the ongoing global economic turmoil.

A week has passed since the official inauguration of Mohamed Morsi as Egypt’s first freely-elected president. The new president has been engaged ever since in continuous trials to form a Cabinet of technocrats headed by an independent premier who belongs to no particular political camp or party. The immediate goal of such a proposition is to share the burden of running the country in such tumultuous times with other political and social forces.

Egypt is currently reeling from the outcome of the presidential race, exhausted, confused and with blurred vision. This is accompanied by deep frustration among half of the population who opted for Ahmed Shafiq, or reluctantly voted for Mohamed Morsi, or voided their ballot or boycotted the entire process altogether. It is a scene that forces the powers that lost the elections — or didn’t lose because they didn’t even run — to stop and think and review the situation to catch up on what they have missed and move forward.

For the past 18 months, Egyptians have been struggling to follow up with the constantly shifting developments in the political sphere. Developments seem to not only play with the existing balance of power, but rather with our own perceptions of what constitutes reality. It almost feels like we are under constant pressure to recollect, organize and reflect on the memories of the events of our enduring revolution, before they fade away, or even worse — are replaced.

Since Mohamed Morsi was declared the first post-Mubarak president of Egypt, there has been widespread speculation of confrontation between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military. Many read the outcome of the presidential election results as one that went against the will of the SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces).

The last few months have been a sobering experience for Egyptian revolutionaries. As was the case in Europe after the “Springtime of the Peoples” in 1848 — when uprisings overturned governments in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Milan and many smaller capitals — moderate and progressive forces quickly lost ground, unprepared for their success, lacking organization and bickering among themselves. In Egypt in 2012, as in Europe in 1849, reactionary forces seem in the ascendant. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and its judicial toadies have found the Mubaraks innocent of corruption, dismissed the elected Parliament and imposed its own governing “law,” soon to be revised by a kangaroo constitution-writing body.

Dear reader, How many times did you say or hear others say that Egyptians are not fit for democracy? How often did you lend an ear to those who claim Egyptians need to be taught how to exercise their political rights, or say so yourself?

Why did the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) rule Egypt during the transitional period in such tragic fashion, leading to such a bitter harvest?

Over the last weeks, the presidential election has dominated Egypt’s political conversation, eclipsing a topic of far greater importance: the drafting of a new constitution. Since this foundational legal document will govern the lives of citizens, determining their rights and responsibilities and shaping the government’s ability to advance society’s interests, Egyptians ought to consider their options carefully. This overview attempts to help the process. It describes two basic types of democracy — parliamentary and presidential — and explains what each can offer to Egypt.

I look at this morning’s front page: “Arab Spring spawns new generation of UK terrorists”. Are we supposed to be surprised by this? I was called all the rude names under the sun for mocking these velvet revolutions in Egypt and Libya. All those bright Westernised kids on their mobile phones preaching the gospel of “democracy”, while the serious revolutionaries – the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, Salafists, Sunni fundamentalists and other armed-to-the-teeth totalitarians – were biding their time.

In one week, Egypt held its first genuine presidential elections that – for the first time ever – ushered in a civilian president from outside the state’s security agencies. It also witnessed three interventions by the state apparatus to abort the democratic transformation. No doubt, the coming phase will see more battles to be rid of Mubarak’s regime, and here is what needs to be done to win that battle.

Millions of people in Egypt who have supported the January 25 revolution savored in the last year or so invaluable moments of hope for the future of a country that has been devastated by decades of greed by a small group of crony capitalists and utterly corrupt politicians. Perhaps, more importantly, ordinary people who succumbed to poverty, ignorance, disease for so long because of the rotten system have rediscovered their human potential in the past 16 months in a way they never dreamed of.

The Muslim Brotherhood have made several mistakes since the January 25 Revolution. This article will highlight the seven great "sins" that have contributed to the present situation – the dissolving of the People’s Assembly (the lower house of parliament) and the presidential elections, which have narrowed down the presidential candidates to two, neither of which are wanted by many Egyptians.

I was not hazarding an uneducated guess when I called for holding a democratic election as a first step in the transition and emphasized that the result of the vote was not known in advance; recognizing at the same time that Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsy had a strong chance of winning.

The Cairo Criminal Court chose to open the session in which it delivered the verdicts against ousted president Hosni Mubarak, former interior minister Habib El-Adly, and six aides, by delivering a political tract. The twenty-minute statement had no bearing on the court's actual function, which is to arbitrate disputes and state the justifications for its rulings.

In a few days, Egypt will officially have a new president. As it stands, the unofficial vote count indicates that the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsy has won the presidency with a mere 51 percent of votes. This tight competition between Morsy and Mubarak’s last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, shows the frustration of the Egyptian electorate who had to choose between these two candidates.

Like many others, I am alarmed by the spirit of vengeance that is spreading among Egyptians lately. I do not doubt that it is an expected reaction to long years of political oppression, economic corruption, and cultural decline over the past decades.