The street is mobilising again in Egypt after the Mubarak trial. The reasons appear entirely reasonable. Judge Ahmed Rifaat was clear that the evidence he was presented was shoddy. It was not enough to convict the six interior ministry security chiefs and aides to Mubarak’s interior minister Habib al-Adly, and not enough to convict Mubarak and Adly of ordering the shooting of protesters. Realising the immensity of the event and the moment, the judge convicted them for being in the positions of responsibility for what happened and failing to prevent it. His prologue about “30 years of darkness” suggested that he genuinely sympathised with the cause of the revolution, though he knows the case will likely be thrown out by the cassation court for reasons he made all too clear himself.

But the return to the  street comes after months of stagnation and violence that the state’s candidate Ahmed Shafiq managed to capitalise on in the first round of the presidential election. Though the machinery of the state that formerly served the defunct National Democratic Party (NDP) was likely a key factor in getting the vote out for Shafiq, in Egypt’s new political environment – which includes the semblance of fair elections – convincing ordinary people of your cause matters. A clear body of the electorate backed Shafiq, whatever interior ministry shenanigans may have been involved in getting him into the run-off, and they were likely turned by the violence at the Defence Ministry in Abbasiyya shortly before the vote, as well as a string of civil unrest events of recent months and partly manufactured political bickering between the military council SCAF’s cabinet and the Islamist parliament.

The  idea that more street action will turn things round now displays a nostalgia for the past that I fear is fundamentally out of touch with the time. The protests would have to be of a huge and decisive nature; they are not because of disputes between Mursi and the political centre which actually won the vote but cannot reap rewards because it is divided between  several candidates, as well as the simple fact that we are over one year on from the Jan 25 uprising. One of the key weaknesses of the revolt was its failure to successfully storm the Interior Ministry complex as well as the state TV building at Maspero. This is one reason why the old state survives. Yet opposition politicians are outdoing themselves in delusion over that fact. People are talking of a return to the spirit of the uprising, a second revolution. AbolFotouh talks of “‘revolutionary courts”,  milllion-man protests are planned, the idea of a presidential council is revived – again – and is going nowhere – again, since neither SCAF nor the Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohammed Mursi are interested. Even the media attention is a shadow of its former self, though Al-Jazeera may hope for a return to the last point in time when it commanded widespread respect.

What is required now is a political decision and political leadership, not Tahrir delusion. It needs the centre and the Muslim Brotherhood to make a deal. There are indications though that both parties believe there is an alternative worth having. The Brotherhood, in declining to thrash out a specific arrangement with Sabahi and AbulFotouh, appears to believe it can pull out every Islamist in the land plus those who fear Shafiq in order to snatch a victory, despite the Islamist vote falling roughly from 10 to 5 million between the parliamentary and presidential elections. There have been at least some gains in the past year,  however, and one of them is that you do have to appeal to an electorate now. Is that electorate impressed by more street action in the middle of a vote presented by the military council as Egypt’s chance to finally turn the page?

Sabahi and AbulFutouh think they can maintain pressure on a Shafiq-SCAF government through the street and a second stage of revolution. In the heated chamber of Egyptian politics right now, various theories and conspiracies swirl around: that the Brotherhood and their Freedom and Justice Party will become a worse version of the NDP, the Brothers uniquely have a demonic drive for power and implementing their agenda that practical politics cannot influence, that the Brothers will make a deal with SCAF when they win, that they made a deal with SCAF not to win (see Nawara Negm’s manic tweets). Yet if Shafiq wins he will be able to use the power of the state against them, even if he is hamstrung to some degree by the Islamist parliament. It’s true that street action has pushed the authorities on some issues, but will that continue to be the case once Shafiq is ensconced as SCAF’s man in power?

I don’t know who’s writing his speeches, but Shafiq’s rhetoric in set-piece situations (if not the TV or press appearances that expose his cranky dictatorial streak) has been smart. He  acknowledges the revolution. He says he respects the court verdicts and promises the security apparatus will be restructured to respect human rights. He says if people fear he’ll take the country back 30 years, what about the Brotherhood taking it back centuries.

Shafiq’s right in one thing, though: that the revolution ended last February – when SCAF threw Mubarak under the bus in order to save the system. If his opponents cannot organise themselves around the Brotherhood candidate now – notwithstanding the positions they must be challenged on – they will be committing another mistake. SCAF is not omnipotent. Its power has waxed and waned over the past year, as Michael Hanna has noted. Giving in to fatalism, cynicism or dreams of reviving the past will just further empower the forces of authoritarianism that have ruined the country over decades. For better or worse, there is a new game in town and it centres around the ballot box, not Tahrir.