Amr Ezzat, a human rights researcher, said the military will have to respect the voices of the revolutionary movements, which it ignored when it stepped into rule after Mubarak. The street is too primed to rise up again on "a new adventure."

"ElBaradei has a role and influence in what is going on. El-Sissi knows there is opposition out there, which managed to turn things upside down. It must have a representative (in power). This is progress," he said.

If the politicians backslide on democracy promises, activist groups on the ground say they are willing and able to take to the streets again to demand their agenda, which includes social justice, respect for human rights and civil liberties, and greater accountability over government and the military.

Some are already dismayed by the return of military power and the police, which were hated under Mubarak but now are basking in public praise after backing Morsi's ouster.

Sally Toma, a longtime activist, called what has happened "a coup against the revolution."

"We are against the military and the Brotherhood. We struggle against both," she said, adding that a new Tamarod-style canvassing campaign called "Manifesto" to collect popular demands is already in the works. "We are back to square one. Our demands are the same."

Already, the liberal movements are hitting back against any signs by the new leadership of turning against their agenda.

One notable example came amid negotiations over the prime minster post last week. Abdel-Aziz of Tamarod publicly accused the spokesman of the new interim president of lying and demanded he be more accountable to the public. It was sparked when an agreement to appoint ElBaradei as prime minister was blocked by Al-Nour. The spokesman told journalists there was no final deal to name him - the sort of spin that in the past went unchallenged.

Bigger frictions erupted when the interim president issued a declaration that was effectively a truncated constitution for the transition period, defining the basic government authorities until elections early next year.

Tamarod and the Salvation Front objected that they had not been consulted and demanded changes. In part, they said it gave too much power to the president, a post they had envisaged as symbolic. But in particular, they were up in arms that it retained clauses opening the door for greater Islamic law that Islamists had put into the constitution they drafted and passed under Morsi.

The groups saw that as a gesture to Al-Nour and protested that the Islamist party was claiming undeserved influence even after Morsi's fall.

Mai Wahba, a founding member of Tamarod, said the group had since negotiated with the interim president and that it is satisfied its concerns are being addressed. She said Tamarod was convinced the Islamist clauses will be removed in the amended constitution.

She acknowledged that the support of Al-Nour is needed for the interim government.

"Don't forget, Al-Nour can go ally with the Brotherhood and represent pressure on national security," she said. "The situation right now won't stand divisions again among the civil current. This will benefit the Islamist current."

Still, that sort of compromise and pragmatism does not go over well with some groups in the street. One activist group, the National Community for Human Rights and Law, denounced the constitutional declaration as "repressive," saying it belongs to the "Mubarak and Morsi era, not to the revolution."

The killings of the Morsi supporters on Monday are also proving a moral test for the democracy advocates. Human rights groups are torn between their mandate to document violations and their reservations about the Brotherhood's own attitude on rights advocates.

Ghada Shahbender, a leading rights activist, said that her "personal dilemma" was that rights groups defended Islamists suppressed during the Mubarak regime, but after Mubarak's fall the Brotherhood turned against rights activists. "Today we are supposed to go defend them, stand in their defense," she said.

After the killings, Shahbender said human rights lawyers went to the morgue to document the deaths and help families find their slain loved ones. Brotherhood lawyers turned them away, saying their help was not needed.

Over the past two years, Brotherhood officials accused rights groups of being foreign-funded and echoed the military's justifications for crackdowns on protesters during the post-Mubarak military rule.

Shahbender said she has also been documenting attacks by Morsi supporters on their opponents the past weeks. In one incident in Cairo near where she lives, she said, "they stood on top of a mosque and shot people in cold blood. ... I am trying to be unbiased but I am a human being."

She too reflected that hope that reform-minded figures like ElBaradei in government will advance their cause, noting that the new interim president called for an investigation into killings.

And, she said, "we have a vice president who has always pushed the human rights agenda to the forefront."