With Islamists set to dominate the new parliament, secular Egyptians hope that the moderates will keep the extremists in check. So far they seem willing to do so

LUMBERING warily towards the first anniversary of their January 25th revolution, Egyptians seem uncharacteristically uncertain what to think of it all. Some claim success, pointing to such gains as a freely elected parliament, soon to be installed, a vibrant press, improving security and firm promises by the country’s military rulers to step aside by July, once a fresh constitution is in force and a new president voted in. Anyone fearing for the spirit of the revolution may take heart from the sight, outside the courtroom where Egypt’s ousted president, Hosni Mubarak, is being tried, of hawkers selling flip-flops impudently imprinted with the image of the fallen pharaoh’s face.

Yet after the most turbulent year in Egypt’s recent history, many see a gloomier picture. The economy is frozen and sinking. The intentions of the Islamists who look set to secure a legislative lockhold remain disturbingly unclear. And the oppressive “deep state” built up by the security services and politicians over 60 years of veiled dictatorship shows signs of resurfacing with a vengeance. Not only is it lashing out viciously with killings, beatings and midnight arrests of dissidents. Its agents in the armed forces, the secret police, the judiciary and the state-influenced media are up to their old tricks, infiltrating provocateurs into protests and spreading a smokescreen of xenophobic innuendo designed to persuade struggling citizens to blame their woes on the very troublemakers who made the revolution possible.

Competing narratives play out nightly over Egypt’s increasingly crowded airwaves. Pro-government channels pump out praise of the army as defenders of order. Rival private channels express a starkly different view, chronicling police brutality, electoral shenanigans and government dim-wittedness. One set of video footage appears to show protesters setting fire to a library of rare books in central Cairo during clashes in mid-December that left 17 civilians dead. Contrasting imagery shows protesters nobly struggling to douse the flames as soldiers look on.

Some newspapers gleefully report that an official probe into foreign funding of human-rights groups has uncovered malicious meddling by enemy states. Others note instead that the ousted Mubarak regime deliberately suspended such groups in legal limbo, that raids on their offices were conducted illegally, and that the Egyptian army itself relies on $1.3 billion a year of American military aid.

Foreign governments are not amused. The German foreign minister called in Egypt’s ambassador and sent a top envoy to protest against the closure of a German foundation that sponsors human-rights activity. America’s State Department drily noted that persecution of American-funded pro-democracy groups appeared to be driven by “Mubarak holdovers who don’t understand how these organisations operate in a democratic society.”

Reverting from revolutionary fervour to habits inculcated during the long years of Mr Mubarak’s rule, weary Egyptians seem inclined to tune out of such disputes. For the time being, members of what is jokingly referred to as Hizb al-Kanaba (“the Couch Party”) have a powerful ally. The Muslim Brotherhood has lately kept judiciously aloof from the political squabbling. The 83-year-old group can afford to let noisy secular rivals scrap with mulish ruling generals because its own front, the Freedom and Justice Party, along with some smaller partners, looks poised to sweep nearly half the seats in parliament’s lower house. The Brothers may tussle bitterly with the generals in due course, especially if they refuse to step down pretty smartly, but for the moment the two sides are seeking not to antagonise each other.

While Cairo has been roiled by two months of street protests, the rest of the country has calmly gone on voting, with the last of three regional rounds due to wrap up on January 11th. Egypt’s first pretty open election in decades has not been free of mischief, but nobody disputes its broad outcome. A bevy of secular parties and independent candidates, including a handful of revolutionary activists, will together hold around a quarter of the seats in parliament. Bolstered by the 25% support for the Salafists’ more radical Nour Party, Islamists will control the rest.

This does not mean that the Brothers and the Salafists will now act in concert. Each Islamist faction embraces a spectrum of views that overlap on many counts, yet there were bitter exchanges during the election campaign. Whereas the Brotherhood has mellowed over years of long experience, the Salafists have scrambled to catch up with Egypt’s fast-changing politics. In contrast to the Brothers, Nour Party leaders belatedly joined the revolution, blessed the practice of democracy (previously dismissed as a contravention of godly laws) only in September, and accepted Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel only in December, to the angry consternation of the party’s more radical elements.

Until now, however, Nour has rejected any form of co-operation with “godless” liberals. Such dogmatism may be hard to square with practical politics. It may also unfairly represent the wishes of the Salafists’ largely rural and poor constituents, who in many cases backed them simply because their candidates appeared less corrupt or because secular parties failed to build a local base.

“I voted for Nour because we know them in our village,” says a building contractor in Fayoum, south-west of Cairo. “They may look extreme, but now they carry a huge responsibility to deliver results on the ground. If they don’t, we’ll vote them out.” With the flow of more normal politics slowly replacing the turmoil of recent months, anxious Egyptians sorely need such patient country wisdom.