Arab-spring

in contrast to Moscow “our U.S. colleagues are supplying countries of the Persian Gulf region with the very type of arms that could be used against peaceful demonstrators."

I have no wish to stand for President of Ennahda in the next congress of the party, but the next Congress will have the final word on who will be the leader of Ennahda

Ghannouchi also told Shems FM that he would welcome Abdelfattah Mourou, a previous leader of Ennahda back into the fold of the party

This was the worst possible outcome of the elections: it is the prelude to the direct confrontation between the old regime and the Muslim Brotherhood that Mubarak warned about and used to justify—and win tacit international acceptance for—his authoritarian policies.

there is no constitution yet and nobody knows how much power the new president will have or how responsibilities will be shared between him and the parliament. The SCAF, expected to step down at the end of June after the president is elected, is now trying to issue a new, last-minute constitutional declaration to define the powers of the president, preempting the decision of the constituent assembly and the prerogatives of the elected parliament to choose who will write the constitution

in the middle will stand over 50 percent of Egyptians who did not vote for either Morsi or Shafiq, but for three candidates that represent, in their own very different fashion, an alternative

Behind Sabbahi, Abdel Moniem Abouel Fotouh, a moderate Islamist independent candidate followed with 387,497, or 22 percent, of the votes, while former foreign minister Amr Moussa won 291,000 votes in third place, followed by Mohamed Morsy, the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate with 269,455. Ahmed Shafiq, former prime minister under Mubarak, who is leading the poll nationally, only won 212,275 votes in Egypt’s second largest city.

It was clear by now that people had lost trust and hope in both the ultraconservative Salafi Nour Party, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party

“Now, the split within the Salafis has been apparent these days, there are some who want to leave the political scene and go back to preaching and their religious roots, which was their main concern before,”

“We were listening to the gun shots and we were asking the police officers to interfere but they had no clue. We are not secure in Sidi Bouzid, the police officers and the army are not accomplishing their duties here,”

“I know someone who was attacked by a salafist and when he went to the police office to complain, he was told to pray to God and ask for revenge,”

“We are living in ‘Bouzid-Stan!’ While I Am a practicing Muslim, what is happening here is not consistent with Islam at all. I know these salafist people, some of them were drunkards a week ago and now they are pretending to be the voice of God in Sidi Bouzid. Every mosque is preaching according to different extremist strands of Islam that in the past were foreign to here, we have a Wahabi mosque, a Salafi mosque, etc.”