3 the revolution are being applied by an agent, the army, which I think iS sincere in wanting to do the right things, but it is not by nature revolutionary.” To their credit, the Egyptian generals moved swiftly to put in place a pathway to democracy: elections for a new Parliament were set for September; this Parliament will then oversee the writing of a new Constitution, and then a new civilian president will be elected. Sounds great on paper, and it was endorsed by a referendum, but there’s one big problem: The Tahrir Square revolution was a largely spontaneous, bottom-up affair. It was not led by any particular party or leader. Parties are just now being formed. If elections for the Parliament are held in September, the only group in Egypt with a real party network ready to roll is the one that has been living underground and is now suddenly legal: the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. “Liberal people are feeling some concerns that they made the revolution and the Muslim Brotherhood can now take it. This is not true,” Esam el-Erian, one of the party’s leaders, insisted to me. But that is exactly what the urban, secular moderates, who actually did spearhead the Tahrir revolt, fear. They are only now forming parties and trying to build networks that can reach the millions of traditional Egyptians living in the countryside and persuade them to vote for a reform agenda and not just: “Islam is the answer.” “The liberal parties need more time to organize,” said Naguib Sawiris, an Egyptian billionaire who’s heading the best organized of the liberal parties, and is urging all the liberal groups to run under a single banner and not divide their vote. If elections happen in September and the Muslim Brotherhood wins a plurality it could have an inordinate impact on writing Egypt’s first truly free Constitution and could inject restrictions on women, alcohol, dress, and the relations between mosque and state. “You will HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_030270