ABSTRACT
On February 11th, 2011, President Hosni Mubarak stepped down as president of Egypt and handed over power to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), headed by his twenty-year Defense Minister, Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. Eighteen days of unprecedented popular protests brought Mubarak's thirty-year authoritarian rule to an end, and paved the way for a new Egyptian republic, a republic that Egyptians hope will be free, democratic, and modern. The courageous uprising against Mubarak's regime and the popular jubilation that followed his resignation vividly conveyed the deep sense of longing for change felt by Egyptians, and their readiness to pay for the cost of change.
