Ghozlan says the junta should acknowledge the results of the parliamentary elections and appoint a representative of the Brotherhood-run Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) as prime minister, charged with forming a new government.

The FJP overwhelmingly won the parliamentary election, and would theoretically, in a parliamentary system, be charged with forming a government. The problem is Egypt isn’t necessarily a parliamentary system, and until the constitution is penned it isn’t really clear what the system actually is.

The junta has used the ambiguous form of Egypt’s system of government to justify keeping a tight grip on power. Even the parliamentary election, nominally to pick people to write the absent constitution, has been rejected by the junta as “non-representative.”

Ganzouri insisted the treatment of the NGOs and their employees was the “legal right” of the junta, which “can’t back down or won’t change course because of some aid.” The US aid amounts to about $1.5 billion annually.

Ganzouri also said various Arab governments have not followed through on their pledges of aid in the wake of Mubarak’s ouster, suggesting the US and its allies were punishing Egypt for “more independent policies.”

The NGO row is somewhat complex. In December, the junta raided US government-funded NGOs backing certain pro-US parties in the election. The NGOs were accused of dodging taxes as well as receiving foreign funding illegally.

At the center of these assorted NGOs’ efforts were two US organizations, the International Republican Institute (IRI, headed by Sen. John McCain) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI, headed by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright). These two groups wield significant political clout in the US and aim to ensure their freedom to peddle influence in Egypt.

The junta’s crackdown broke with a long-standing tradition of giving US workers a wide berth, and the Egyptian regime has now filed charges against 19 Americans, including local IRI leader Sam LaHood, the son of a US cabinet member, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

Normally a minor slight could be handled behind the scenes by political leaders, but this time matters appear to have gotten away from them. The US will likely not relent in its demands, but it will be hard for the Egypt junta to back down now that so much has been made of the matter.

The charges stem from December raids against the NGOs, which were funded by the US government to help pro-US factions prepare for the nation’s first free elections. The junta argued that the groups were never licensed by former dictator Hosni Mubarak, and were therefore not legally allowed to receive foreign funds.

The targeted Americans chiefly worked for the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), groups heavily funded by the US government and run by Republican and Democratic Party leaders, respectively. The case has received attention due to heavy political interest in the matter, and because the head of the IRI’s Egypt office is Sam LaHood, the son of US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

LaHood is among the 19 Americans facing charges, all of them hiding in the US Embassy in Cairo where LaHood says everyone is “expecting the worst.” The IRI issued a statement insisting that Egypt’s court system is “not legitimate.”  The State Department has condemned the inquiry repeatedly but has not officially said whether it intends to give the Americans permanent asylum in the embassy.

US officials, including IRI chairman Sen. John McCain (R – AZ), have warned that the Egyptian military junta could lose its billions of dollars in annual US aid over these actions. The junta has insisted that it would allow the judiciary to set the process.

The fans allege that the military junta, supported by the Interior Ministry’s security forces, stood by while pro-junta forces attacked fans of Al-Ahly, on the supposed grounds that the most vocal fans of the team were also loudly anti-Mubarak.

At this point, the team’s fans have put the Interior Ministry HQ under a state of virtual siege. Thousands are surrounding the compound and tearing down the barbed wire security forces put in front of it.

Hundreds were wounded in clashes with police around the Interior Ministry, and two people were reported killed in a separate demonstration in Suez. The junta turned over the Egyptian Football Federation’s board of directors to prosecutors after the riot.

Since the raid, the junta has barred a handful of the NGOs’ American employees from leaving the country, including local IRI head Sam LaHood, the son of US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Some of the employees have hidden inside the US Embassy in Cairo fearing arrest.

The junta argues that the NGOs were never formally licensed by former US-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak, and were therefore illegal. The NGOs, primarily the IRI and its Democratic Party counterpart, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), are heavily funded by the US government and sought to help parties seen as favorable to the US prepare for the elections.

Sens. Levin and McCain both intend to meet with an incoming junta delegation next week to press them on the matter. McCain has warned in previous comments that restricting foreign funded groups from participating in the election threatened “US national interests.”

An interesting aspect of this battle is that the junta has been a traditionally enormous recipient of US funding as well, and its first response was to hire a major DC lobbyist to defend the raids. The lobbyists now say they have dumped the junta fearing a backlash from Congress, though the junta maintains it dumped them to “save money.”

The State Department has declined to name the three employees, but they were subjects of the ongoing investigation into the International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic Institute (NDI), two heavily US government-funded organizations run by top members of the Republican and Democratic Parties, respectively.

Egypt’s junta raided a number of NDI and IRI backed groups late last month, claiming that they were illegal, having never been formally legalized by former US-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak before the Egyptian revolution. The groups were working on behalf of certain political parties favored by the US in the parliamentary elections.

The raids took the Obama Administration by surprise because the junta has also been heavily funded by the US, and Egypt’s military has received untold billions of dollars from the US in the past. IRI leader Sen. John McCain (R – AZ) has openly condemned the raids, saying they “conflict with US national interests.” The junta has spent massive amounts of money lobbying the US to accept the raids.

The State Department warned last week that Congress has made further aid to the junta conditional on “certifications” that they are operating within US-accepted norms, which would likely oblige the junta to back off its investigations, at least so far as they relate to the NDI and IRI’s efforts to peddle influence in the nation.

The Americans in question are employees of some of the several US-funded NGOs which were raided by the junta late last month. Attention over the travel bans was considerably increased because one of those blocked, International Republican Institute (IRI) Egypt head Sam LaHood, is the son of an Obama Administration cabinet member, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

According to the junta, the bans were imposed by the investigating judge in the matter. All those barred were either IRI or National Democratic Institute (NDI) employees. Both the IRI and NDI are funded in great measure by the US government, and are staffed by leaders of the Republican and Democratic Parties, respectively.

Needless to say, this increases both the IRI and NDI’s considerable political clout in Washington. The IRI’s chairman of the board, Sen. John McCain (R – AZ) has loudly condemned the Egypt junta over the investigation, while the junta, itself a huge recipient of US largesse, has bankrolled a major DC lobbying effort to defend its own position.

The State Department insists that Congress has made aid to the junta conditional on “certifications” which have something vaguely related to “democracy” included in them. In practice this likely means that if the junta will let the IRI and NDI buy influence with impunity, they can stay on the US gravy train with everyone else.

That is until now. When the US State Department expressed public “concerns” about the military junta’s crackdown on “pro-democracy” NGOs that receive US funding, the Livingston Group — a recipient of some of the $90,000+ monthly Egyptian lobbying funds — went into action.

The lobbyists have defended the raids against the NGOs, arguing that some of them were never licensed by the former Mubarak regime and that they were technically “operating outside Egyptian law.” They have also forwarded a set of “talking points,” including that the NGOs should not be allowed to “operate outside the law.”

The move has spawned a retaliatory round of condemnations from some politicians, notably Sen. John McCain (R – AZ), who is chairman of the board of directors of one of the NGOs. McCain demanded that the lobbyists stop, saying they “conflict with US national interests” and “undermine American values.” The Livingston Group is run by former House Appropriations Committee head Bob Livingston (R – LA).

The raids and the Livingston lobbying clearly reflect the interest of the current military junta, while McCain’s condemnations are a function of his own NGO’s ambitions in the country. Ironically both the junta and the NGO are heavily on the take from the US government, and more than a serious ideological split, their respective positions represent efforts to keep their respective gravy trains running.

The new parliament will be made up of two large, albeit extremely different, Islamist factions alongside several smaller liberal factions. The largest party, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), holds 47 percent of the seats, just shy of a majority.

The first day’s session will see an extremely temporary six-party coalition affirming the FJP’s victory, and appointing FJP leader Saad al-Katatni as the new speaker of parliament. The job of forming a government, however, will not happen any time soon.

That’s because the “interim” military junta will continue to rule the nation through at least June’s presidential election, and has already provided some indications that they won’t allow parliament to follow through with any serious changes that threaten their rule.

The “75 percent” is made up of two distinct parties which are perhaps an excellent example of exactly how broad the term “Islamist” can be. The larger of the two parties, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Salafist al-Nour Party are not only distinct, but might not even be the most likely coalition.

Both parties came to power in largely the same manner, with long-standing charitable operations being parlayed into political might in the first free election in Egypt’s history.

Though both parties were long illegal under the Mubarak regime the FJP represents “moderate Islamism,” a right of center religious conservatism that roughly mirrors that of the Christian Democrats in Germany or the Pakistani Muslim League in Pakistan.

By contrast the al-Nour were the offspring of a much more strict interpretation of the Quran, the Dawaa Movement, which started in the 1970’s in Alexandria as a more puritanical alternative to the Muslim Brotherhood.

By necessity of the demographic makeup of Egypt, the al-Nour Party insists it will allow the nation’s Christian minority to continue to operate unmolested, with a separate set of laws for them. They are, however, generally less accepting of religious minorities, and have much in common with the ruling theocracy in Saudi Arabia.

Though the FJP could certainly establish a government with al-Nour and govern as a right-far-right coalition with a strong religious slant (the current Israel coalition being a recent example of that model), the relative newness of democracy and the effort to establish new international relations in the wake of the 2011 revolution makes this actually a less likely coalition.

Rather, the FJP seems to be more interested in courting the much smaller secular reformist parties, with the prospect of taking some left of center groups (particularly those with international support) into a coalition as a way of increasing their diplomatic prospects, while leaving al-Nour as either an extremely minor government partner or an outright opposition leader.

This sort of Left-Right coalition has precedent elsewhere, with Germany and Britain both going that route in recent elections where a right wing party won a victory but fell short of a majority. Egypt provides an interesting difference, however, because there is virtually no political “center” in existence, with the status quo candidates mostly cast aside in the wake of Mubarak’s ouster. Both the concept of coalition partners and opposition members will, instead, likely vary from issue to issue, though it does seem likely that, should the current junta ever step aside and allow a new government to form, that the FJP will try to put reformists in certain positions with high international profiles.