Egypt's first elected civilian president, Mohammed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, has played up "people power" by first taking a symbolic oath before a huge throng at Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday before Saturday's formal inauguration.

Mursi has pledged to be “the president of all Egyptians” and to “preserve the republican system... and to preserve the independence” of Egypt.” But he faces a tough battle with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which took power after long-time president Hosni Mubarak stepped down in February last year in the face of a popular rebellion.

The military council, which was praised as the “saviour” of Egypt and the “guardian” of the revolution, has kept one step ahead of the revolutionaries. The ruling generals have countered every move that could dilute the privileged status of the military and bring it under government control and oversight.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which has emerged as the dominant political power in post-Mubarak Egypt, and the military appear to have worked out a behind-the-scene agreement over Mursi’s presidency. Apparently, the deal provides for Mursi to form a civilian government that would have limited powers, with the military calling all the shots. The Muslim Brotherhood had no option but to accept the deal because the military held — and continues to hold — all the four aces.

Egypt does not have a constitution or a parliament. Legislative powers are in the hands of the military, which is also in control of the state’s budget. The ruling generals disbanded an Islamist-dominated committee charged with drawing up a new constitution and is poised to name one of their own.

It is clear that the military and the Muslim Brotherhood do not trust each other, but the two sides needed to work out a modus vivendi in order to protect their interests. The military’s agenda is to constitutionalise its status as an entity of its own — a sort of state within a state — and preserve its business empire, details of which remain unknown to the Egyptian people. The Muslim Brotherhood wants an empowered parliament that would be the ultimate authority in the country. It also seeks to a Islamist system of government.

The military does not have any problem with the Brotherhood’s agenda because it knows that the country’s secularists and liberals would raise a huge hue and cry if the Islamists went too far ahead with their plans, and this will allow the generals to step in and check them.

What lies ahead for Egypt is a cat-and-mouse political game between the Islamists and the military, with the latter retaining all options for itself. The revolutionaries of Egypt, who had hoped last year’s rebellion will bring in real change, are left as helpless by-standers.