Newspapers noted the low turnout in the Shura Council elections which started on Sunday and also covered the protests and sit-ins to mark the first anniversary of the revolution and the post-revolution parliament. Al-Ahram on Tuesday had 'Race with time to shorten transitional period'. Al-Shorouk on Tuesday wrote 'Today, the consultative board shows SCAF the way to abandon authority in parliament'. Al-Akhbar on Monday headlined 'Shura Council elections without voters' and Al-Wafd on Sunday blared 'Prayers for revolution's martyrs on Qasr Al-Nil Bridge and a march to Maspero with shoes raised'. Writers looked at protests in Tahrir Square in an attempt to understand where Egypt is heading. In his description of the scene in Tahrir, Ezzat El-Kamhawi said that it provided room for winners and losers and for the happy and sad. The Muslim Brotherhood, who achieved much through the ballot boxes, he explained, went to Tahrir to celebrate their victory. Meanwhile, the youth who initiated the revolution went there to revive the memory of the dead. Anyway, "the presence of winners and losers in the square emphasises that the legitimacy of the street will stay with us for some time because of the defects that occurred in building the new state," El-Kamhawi wrote in the official daily Al-Akhbar. While there were differences between the MB and youth in the square, the writer was thankful that it ended peacefully and wished that any differences in the square or the "street parliament" as he called it, would end peacefully as well. El-Kamhawi concluded by drawing a roadmap for both powers. He asked the MB to provide a dignified life to voters rather than impose more restrictions on them. He called on youth to benefit from the experiment of the MB and play a more active role in the social life of people and challenge any attempts to keep them away from Tahrir Square. Asmaa El-Husseini wrote that a new system has not been established in Egypt one year after the revolution, though some features have started to show up after the election of the parliament. El-Husseini drew a picture of the complicated political scene in Egypt in which there is conflict between the Islamists and their enemies, between the army and whoever is trying to contain their authority, between the youth who launched the revolution and those attempting to reap its fruits and those who call for change and those against it. In the meantime there are internal conflicts within the Islamic groups, the liberals, the revolutionary youth and possibly within the army. "Egypt, which has been stagnant for decades, is going through active political shifts that are likely to shape its future," El-Husseini wrote in the official daily Al-Ahram. Although there are fears concerning these changes, she added, they are necessary to push Egypt forward and pave the way for its rebirth. SCAF decided to annul emergency laws except for cases of thuggery. The move was not welcomed as a major step. Mustafa Ebeid described the SCAF decision as a lie. The decision, he wrote, reminded us of Hosni Mubarak's decision in 2010 to cancel the same law except in cases related to terrorism and drug trafficking. This is their way, Ebeid added, of keeping the door ajar for implementing the emergency law against political activists and protesters on the pretext that they are hooligans. It is clear, as Ebeid further explained, the word thuggery is used loosely. That is, protesters at Mohamed Mahmoud Street were thugs because they wanted to break into the Ministry of Interior, protesters at Maspero were thugs because they intended to attack the army, and those at Qasr Al-Aini Street were likewise because they used force against military police. Thus, he wrote in Al-Wafd, the mouthpiece of the opposition Wafd Party, any celebration or claim that the emergency law was annulled is unjustified because every person needs to prove that he is not a thug so as not to be tried according to that law. The conclusion of the parliamentary election reignited controversy over which should come first: the constitution or the presidential elections. Moataz-Billah Abdel-Fattah wrote that initially the majority of Egyptians preferred parliamentary elections first, but the majority of protesters wanted the constitution first. SCAF decided to sandwich the constitution between the parliamentary elections and the presidential elections. However, Abdel-Fattah wrote in the independent daily Al-Shorouk that it did not matter which comes first, but that "we should stick to the road map we drew up. "Now, we re-entered into the controversy of which should come first -- the president or the constitution. Some protesters argue that according to last March's referendum, the constitution should come after the presidential elections. According to that plan, presidential elections should start immediately after the end of Shura Council elections. That means that we could have an elected president by mid April. Later SCAF declared that the constitution would be drafted before the constitution and that means we will have an elected president by June. Amid controversy between the two groups emerged a third point of view which calls for the constitution and president together. That means that steps to elect the new president will go hand in hand with the work of the constitutional committee responsible for drafting the constitution. Ali El-Sayed preferred that the constitution come first, even before parliamentary elections. "Thus, we should now fight for the constitution first." El-Sayed wrote that we "entered into a state of blundering that could lead us to a political cul de sac. The parliament appears uncertain of its role, protesters in Tahrir Square are not confident enough and SCAF is looking for a quick way out." While El-Sayed acknowledged that he is all for the return of the army to their barracks, the idea of handing authority to a civilian government needs some thought. Some people suggested, El-Sayed added, that authority should be handed to the parliamentary speaker or that presidential elections be held before the constitution is drawn up. "The president before the constitution has some advantages, but a lot of defects. And drafting a new constitution will not take more than two months. So there is a will and an intention to agree," El-Sayed wrote in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.
