Thanks for the good discussion in the previous Egypt thread. Arnold Evans, with whom I usually agree, has a different take on the situation there than I have.

When one looks at the history of this revolution it was the Brotherhood that came late to it. It was the Brotherhood that promised not to go for the Presidency and not to go for a majority of the parliament. They broke both of those and several other of their promises. They can not be trusted to do what they say.

Morsi was elected with some 51% of the 50% of the Egyptian electorate that voted. That is not what I would call a clear mandate. It is at maximum a caretaker position. But that wasn't enough for him. With the power in the parliament the MB stuffed the constitutional assembly with its own people and ignored the opposition.
Some of  yesterday's protesters had voted for Morsi but are now dissatisfied with them. I doubt that the MB and Morsi still have a majority of Egyptians behind them.

A constitution must reflect the whole of the electorate, not just the majority party. The purpose of a democratic constitution is to protect the minority from the dictatorship of the majority. But everyone but the MB and the Salafists has by now left the constitutional assembly because all their attempts for compromises and to make it inclusive were voted down.

When Morsi declared himself an incontestable pharaoh he also moved the deadline for the writing of the new constitution two month into the future. Today the MB declared that the constitution draft would be ready tonight and would be immediately put up for a vote. That is not a reasonable political process.

There were and still are much better ways to do this. After the downfall of Suharto in Indonesia the constitution was changed bit by bit in a long process. The attempt in Egypt to create a completely new one while riding on a roller coaster of political and economic upheaval is unlikely to go well.

The Egyptian president is supposed to be non-partisan. But while Morsi has officially left the Brotherhood his policies are exclusively the Brotherhood policies. Are we really to believe that this is what his voters wanted? Or did they want some figure they could trust to lead the political process to bring Egypt forward towards a stable state?

The alternative to Morsi is not the return of a dictatorial SCAF. Neither the U.S. nor the military believe that that could be done without igniting a civil war. (Thanks to Libya the Brotherhood cells are by now well armed.) The alternative to a partisan Morsi is an inclusive Morsi.

As Nathan Brown writes:

[W]hile the crisis is not fully a product of the actors’ intentions, Egyptians will not find a path forward unless their leaders find within themselves an intention to resolve their differences through compromise. The constitutional process is badly broken, but it can still be repaired.

The opposition can find a set of demands that is not predicated on denying Islamists the fruits of electoral victory or bringing the president down. The president can back down on parts of last week’s dictatorial moves.

The basic elements of compromise have not been destroyed — yet.

The Brotherhood announced a demonstration of its followers on Saturday. It plans to have this at Tahrir square where yesterday a hundred thousand protested against Morsi and where some of those protesters are still camping out. Should the two groups meet the situation could become bloody very fast. The "elements of compromise" would than likely be destroyed.

The Brotherhood should step back, avoid the danger of a blood conflict and go for a real democracy. If it is so convinced of having a majority behind it why does it want to rush a process that will define and guide Egypt through the next decades?

Morsi's priority now should be to get a new parliament elected. The constitution should be left alone until that parliament is well seated and has defined its working procedures. It could then task an inclusive group of notable people as constitutional assembly to write a new constitution in which each article is compromised on until it receives at least a two-third majority of the constitutional assembly. The constitutional draft should then be voted on by all until one is found that a super-majority of the people can agree on.

Only an inclusive solution can guarantee Egypt's stability.