What happened today around the Presidential Palace in Cairo? It may be a long while before its implications become clear. As I write the casualty count is still confused: at least three dead according to Ministry of Health; four according to press reports, and hundreds wounded. The dead reportedly include both protesters and Muslim Brotherhood/Morsi defenders.
What seems different about today is that whatever else it proves to mean, the Muslim Brotherhood seems to be jettisoning its alliances and seeking to claim power for itself. Remember that Morsi won only 24% of the vote in round one; Morsi's 51% victory margin included plenty of people who thought he was the lesser of two evils. But today it seems to be shedding allies. Morsi's non-Brotherhood advisors are quitting right and left: the newly-appointed head of the committee overseeing the constitutional referendum has quit, refusing to preside over a referendum that has shed Egyptian blood;as have two other key aides.
There are reports that up to 26 Egyptian diplomats abroad have refused to administer referendum voting in their embassies. And even the Muslim Brotherhood's usual Salafi allies were not out today:
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