The Egyptians go to the polls to elect a new parliament at the end of September, and a new president at the end of December. How will they vote? The question bothers politicians, analysts and thinkers alike they cannot even begin to answer it.

Do you think that Mubarak's pledge on February 1st not to contest the next election represented a victory for the movement, or was it just a trick to calm down the masses as on the very next day demonstrators in Al-Tahrir Square were brutally attacked by pro-Mubarak forces?

Hosni Mubarak s decision to replace his cabinet and appoint a vice-president (Omar Suleiman, 74, head of army intelligence), something he had refused to do since he became president in 1981, had no effect on the hundreds of thousands of Egyptian demonstrators who want him to relinquish all power. His vague calls for dialogue with the opposition, and for economic and social reforms, were also ineffectual. The tension on Egypt s streets did not abate.

The protestors had stood in Midan Tahrir while fighter jets screamed low overhead, in a move of blatant intimidation. They had organised despite the regime s blocking of internet and other means of communication; despite years of arrests of dissenters.