ARAB DEMOCRACY (2)

In the end, he went. Having said as recently as last night, in a televised address to the nation, that he would not resign, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak did just that this evening. Cairo is now one big party city.

However, to use a well-worn phrase, this is not the end, but the end of the beginning. What happens next is still very unclear. Mubarak handed over power to the armed forces high command, not his newly installed vice-President, or any other civilian. What the army does with that power is an open question, which presumably will not be answered for some time.

The demonstrators have won the first round. We should not underestimate the size of that victory, but neither should we underestimate how much more change there still needs to be before Egypt can be declared a democracy.

Walter Blotscher