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t arrived when President Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down after 31 years, triggering euphoria not seen here since the 1952 coup that ended the monarchy.

Like everything Egyptian, this political spring is a jumble of contradictions.

While dozens of lawsuits charge the police with brutality and corruption, many policemen are on strike with placards reading: We, too, were victims of the police state!

With the collapse of the administrative hierarchy and the disappearance of "deciders," the all-powerful bureaucrats who kept the oversized machine going, few government offices are operating.