After last week's violent clashes between protestors and security forces in Cairo's landmark Tahrir Square left 41 protestors dead and over 3,000 wounded , the first elections since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak and his regime began today as scheduled.  According to Marc Lynch of Foreign Policy Magazine, "Egypt has gone from having no democracy at all to having the most complicated system I've ever encountered," so here's a short breakdown of what's going on.

Parliamentary elections are being held in three stages over a period of six weeks. The first stage began today and will continue tomorrow, and runoffs will be held December 5 and 6. The first round is taking place in nine out of the 27 Egyptian governorates: Cairo, Alexandria Fayyum, Assiut, Luxor, the Red Sea, Port Said, Damietta and Kafr El-Sheikh. Egyptians are voting to fill 168 seats (out of a total 498) in the first round, 56 of which will go to independents and 112 to party-based candidates. 

Nearly 50 political parties and thousands of independent candidates are running in this year's parliamentary elections. The main parties are divided into four blocs: 

Egyptian Bloc: alliance of liberal parties campaigning for 'civil democracy and social justice' including the Free Egyptians Party, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, and theNational Progressive Unionist Party.

Democratic Alliance: consists of 12 parties including the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, the Ghad Party, and the Dignity Party.

Islamist Alliance: conservative bloc mostly made up of Salafi parties, including al-Nour Party.

Revolution Continues: made up of socialist and liberal parties as well as the Revolution Youth Coalition. 

The second stage of elections will begin on December 14, and the third on January 3. Shura Council elections will begin on January 29 and end on March 11. Presidential elections are tentatively being held in June, according to the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces.  

According to the BBC, the elections seem to be running smoothly so far with a high turnout and few security issues. Long lines and delays were reported in Cairo and Alexandria and are being attributed to administrative and logistical problems.  

Here is a visual breakdown of Egypt's elections.

Photo: A man shows his ink stained finger after casting his vote at a polling station during parliamentary elections in Cairo. Amr Dalsh / Reuters

"The revolution in Egypt is not over. It has hardly begun," writes Omeya El Naggar in an article titled "Will Egypt's Arab Spring Turn Into an Arab Nightmare." Egypt's Tahrir Square looked like a nightmare today, ten months after protests brought down Hosni Mubarak's regime, as clashes between protestors and police continued for a third consecutive day. Al Jazeera reports that 33 people have been killed and over 1,500 injured since Saturday. 

Thousands of protestors gathered in Tahrir Square, the symbolic epicenter of the Arab Spring, to demand the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) swiftly transfer power to a civilian authority and to protect their revolution from what they say is an attempt to hijack it. Parliamentary elections are scheduled to start on November 28, but presidential elections won’t be held until a new constitution is written, which could take up to a year. In the meantime, executive powers would remain with the army. 

According to the Cairo daily Al Masry al Youm, protestors were using firebombs and shotgun pellets against the police. At a brief news conference, a representative of the military, General Said Abbas, said that the security forces had not initiated any violence and had only defended themselves. This video however, shows police officers beating lifeless bodies and dragging others by their hair across the square. One activist tweeted, "There are protestors writing phone numbers on their arms so that in case they're killed their family members can be contacted. #Tahrir." Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh said the clashes were "very intense, with the people on the street telling us…that the military has shown its true colors."

In the face of such bloody protests, interim Prime Minsiter Essam Sharaf and his cabinet submitted their collective resignation. However, the military council reportedly announced they will not accept the resignation until Egyptian political forces decide on a replacement prime minister.  

In an article titled "Cairo Jumps the Rails," Marc Lynch says, "Now is a time for the Egyptian political elite to unify -- Islamist and non-Islamist, elite and popular -- around clear demands for a speedy political transition to civilian rule. Protestors, bloody and mourning their dead, will not be satisfied with minor political concessions." Others say it is easier said than done. In an increasingly heated and complex political climate, Al Ahram’s Elias Harfoush argues that "the ongoing competition…over the inheritance of Mubarak's regime has its justifications…Mubarak's absence has left a great vacuum  in the prime seat of power in the largest [and most populated] Arab country." In other words, the stakes are high. 

As over 20,000 protestors filled Tahrir Square on Monday night, activists are calling for a "million man march" on Tuesday to call for a new civilian government and national unity.  

Seven months into the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, the Syrian opposition remains starkly divided on several key issues. According to the BBC, these issues include "the question of whether or not to encourage foreign intervention, whether there should be regime change or dialogue, and whether there should be armed rebellion or peaceful protest."

The Syrian National Council (SNC), which was recently formed in Turkey, and the Damascus-based National Coordination Committee (NCC) are the two main opposition groups that have emerged in Syria. While both blocs agree on overthrowing the current regime, the NCC calls for dialogue with Assad's regime (on the condition that the regime ends the violence against protestors), while the SNC vehemently rejects any form of dialogue. 

While the SNC and the NCC both originally rejected foreign intervention, the SNC membership now seems divided on the issue. According to Foreign Policy Magazine, "some SNC members, especially the youth activists, have been calling for the imposition of a no-fly zone and the protection of civilians including a NATO-led intervention akin to the one in Libya." The NCC calls instead for economic sanctions and other political maneuvers to counter Assad's regime. 

Military defectors organized under the Free Syrian Army (FSA) mark yet another facet of Syria's opposition. The FSA has repeatedly mounted attacks on Syrian security forces and Syrian security forces and army, worrying many that the crisis will escalate into a civil war. A majority of the opposition agrees that protests should remain non-violent, however many youth activists are growing impatient with the slow progress on the political front.

In the aftermath of the Libyan revolution against Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi, many black Sub-Saharan African migrants and dark skinned Libyans continue to be the target of attacks by armed "revolutionaries". While race has long been a dividing line in the predominantly Arab country, "the atrocities attributed to black mercenaries during the uprising against Gaddafi, as well as the allegiance some regions populated by dark-skinned Libyans showed him in the war, have given the race question a new and deadly currency," according Joseph Logan of IOL News.

Human Rights Watch reported that the town of Tawergha, a predominantly black town south of Misurata which used to be home to over 30,000 residents, remains deserted in the weeks following the revolution. Militias from Misurata are "terrorizing the displaced residents…accusing them of having committed atrocities with Gaddafi forces." Katrina Nikolas of the Digital Journal writes, "[The death of Gaddafi] has not satisfied the desire for vengeance amongst still-armed NTC militias."

One Liberian migrant who is one of 600 Africans camping out at a fishing port in Tripoli said, "If children see us they hold their noses, and revolutionaries sometimes shoot by us. Blacks are Gaddafi, they say. We need to leave." Another migrant said they faced constant assaults including robbery, physical attacks, and rape. 

Human Rights Watch and the UN Human Rights Council have called on the African Union and the NTC to protect the rights of migrants and refugees. Middle East and North Africa Director at HRW Sarah Leah Whitson said, "It's a dangerous time to be dark-skinned in Tripoli. The NTC should stop arresting African migrants and black Libyans unless it has concrete evidence of criminal activity. It should also take immediate steps to protect them from violence and abuse."

Last month, the National Transitional Council denied the allegations, saying "We do not make any distinction among people on grounds of color. And we do not discriminate against our brothers from African countries." He added that any captured mercenaries will receive fair trials and that the NTC will "fully investigate any human rights violations committed by its fighters," but that remains to be seen.