LEADERS of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) must have heaved a sigh of relief on seeing the number of demonstrators in the streets decreasing with the passing of time. Even on the second anniversary of Mubarak's stepping down, the number of people that responded to the call of making February 11, 2013 the last day in the rule of President Mohamed Morsi, was very low compared to previous events. Then, hundreds of thousands of citizens had filled Tahrir Square or marched to Al-Itehadiya Palace calling for the toppling of the MB regime. But before feeling satisfied over this drop in numbers, the MB's officials and supporters should have a panoramic look at the entire picture to realise some important changes that might give new indications of growing public anger against their rule. The first of these points was the protests widely extending to reach some other governorates that had never previously risen against MB rule. In other words, at a time when the number of demonstrators are decreasing in the capital they are spreading and increasing in other governorates of the Delta and Upper Egypt. As for the cities and governorates of the Suez Canal region as well as of the Sinai, it is no exaggeration to say that rule of the Muslim Brotherhood has already come to an end in these governorates. It is enough to learn that no police officer can walk down the streets of these places while wearing his uniform. The other important indication that should raise concern of the rulers is peaceful demonstrations turning into violent acts that have reached the level of challenging the police and attacking police stations and governorate buildings. They have even extended to attempting to stop work at the massive governmental service building of Al-Mugamma, Tahrir Square, and the Underground Metro service. First of all, the MB should realise that most of the public refrain from participating in these events not out of conviction in the rightness of the group's rule. Instead, citizens are either suffering despair due to the intentional neglect of their demands, which they raised in peaceful and civilised ways, or are resisting the adoption of a violent approach to convey their protest against the authorities. However, the people continue to feel the same anger towards the new rulers that have failed to fulfil their ambition of rebuilding the country on a civil democratic base. Thus, they just consider another means of expressing their anger and opposition to the new rulers via the ballot boxes in the approaching elections. Accordingly, the MB rulers should not mistakenly believe that the sense of pessimism and despair the Egyptians have come to suffer would take them back to the previous spectator position that they used to assume under the rule of Mubarak or his military predecessors. Unfortunately, the MB and other Islamists powers continue with ignoring this change in the attitude of the Egyptian citizens after January 25 Revolution. The proof of this is their tendency to issue laws and take steps to hold the parliamentary elections in such a way as to ensure their domination on the coming parliament. For him to achieve this goal, we see that the President rejects any call for replacing the present government with a national unity government to be neutral in supervising the parliamentary elections. Similarly, the MB has rejected the opposition request of having international bodies monitor the election process. Herein, the opposition might take the legal procedure of boycotting the whole process as they once did in the Shura Council [Upper Parliamentary House] elections. These were effectively run between candidates of the Islamist parties when the turnout was less than seven per cent of the electorate and the results were announced against the public will. The problem is that this Shura Council that used to be of a consultative nature with no real influential role in the political process recently acquired the task of legislation until the new parliament is elected. So, the Islamists would have to decide if they should follow the same experience of holding parliamentary elections in the absence of the opposition, which would raise questions as to their legitimacy and likely have a very low turnout. Herein, the citizens would find no other way but to launch a fresh angry wave of revolution against the MB rule – if we reach the stage of elections. Another important change makes one suspicious of holding parliamentary elections in the near future. This is the eruption of violence in every governorate in Egypt and failure of the president to seek a political solution to cool the street other than the security procedures that have resorted to the same old violent practices against the public. Such brutal acts that have practised by the security agency not only provoke anger and criticism of the human rights organisations, political activists and media people but also of some members of the security agency itself. Last Tuesday, thousands of NCOs (non-commissioned officers) launched protests against the Minister of the Interior at the security directorates of many governorates requesting departure of the minister whom they accused of attempting to facilitate MB domination of their ministry. Under the slogan ‘First day of anger' the police expressed their opposition to the new law governing demonstrations that, in their opinion, would harm their relation with the citizens by legalising violent actions against protestors. This is how the NCOs realised that issuing a law strengthening their power over the public would not end street violence but could even aggravate it. So will the President and his ministers of justice and the interior realise this simple fact soon? Therefore, these developments merit studying and analysis by the persons in rule before wrongly assuming that the public refrains from participating in demonstrations as a good point in their favour.
