One year ago this Sunday, on June 30, 2012, Mohammed Morsi became president of Egypt, 18 months after revolutionary euphoria had flooded Cairo’s sweltering streets. The Muslim Brotherhood stalwart had come to power in the wake of the Tahrir Square pro-democracy uprising that toppled the three-decades-old dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak.
It would count as a massive understatement to call Morsi’s first year in office a disappointment. To see just how thoroughly Egyptians feel Morsi has let them down, follow events in Cairo and elsewhere in the country this Sunday, as the country marks the anniversary with expected massive protests calling for Morsi to step down and new elections to replace him.
The sense of crisis has been growing steadily over the past 12 months, building to this day. Just as the collapse of Mubarak’s seemingly eternal hold on power started with a planned street protest promoted on Twitter with a hashtag noting its date, #Jan25, protesters are building up momentum for #Jun30, hoping to bring down another government they see as essentially anti-democratic, increasingly repressive and—most importantly for purposes of mass appeal—incapable of pulling the country out of its downward economic spiral.