Thread by @mosaaberizing

The tragic tale of Mohamed Morsi.

Not even the MB’s first choice for presidency. He only ran as a substitute for the group’s most popular and bizarrely disqualified main candidate, Khairat El-Shater.

Many agree that the group’s decision to take part in the election after Mubarak, made by Khairat, after promising not to, was perhaps its most fatal decision. But to run/end up with Morsi was a whole level of ineptitude and bankruptcy.

Previously a parliamentarian in the Mubarak era and not one of the group’s top leadership, he was mocked endlessly for being put forward as an uninspiring spare إستبن

The shafik/morsi election was brutal. It was poised as the final showdown of Mubarak’s state vs the fragile revolution. Everyone was swept in the divide and there was little to no one in the grey area. It was a question of who you despised more.

I, along with many, voted for Morsi. I always think about that.

I had never seen Cairo hold its breath collectively as it did the day the results were announced. There were rumors of forging the result. It was nasty. Everything was on the line.

Morsi won 51% of the votes in what was the most dramatic but also only fair presidential election Egypt had seen. I doubt there’ll be anything ever like it.

Here is a video of Tahrir square shot by @evanchill off a rooftop as we covered the official announcement. Hundreds of thousands jumped in celebration. You could literally feel the city shake. There was a sense of victory.

Looking back at my personal reaction to this, it was a huge sigh of relief more than anything else. I thought we’d avoided a disaster by voting out Shafik. I was hopeful. Little did I know..

It could be argued that doom was looming either way. That Morsi, in his troubled and short lived term, had no hand in the failure he was set up for. But every decision he took seemed worse than the other.

His presidency seemed guided by greed and the benefit of his group rather than one of finding common ground. It was messy, bloody, and unstable. The army watched as people, many who voted him, asked for the military to step in.

In fact, the middle ground he tried finding was with the military state, police and salafists. He appointed Sisi and Mohamed Ibrahim, who would later depose him.

Morsi had no clear ideas, lacked charisma, and inspired no confidence. He faced an uphill of challenges and he failed at tackling them. He would become an easy and prime target for sisi.

Morsi was removed a year later, on July 3, 2013, and would be charged in many farcical cases. None of which had to do with his mistakes but with vengeance of Mubarak state against the brotherhood. He died today during a trial for one of these cases.

I don’t know where I’m going with this but it’s impossible not to be saddened by his death. It is cruel and vile. It was facilitated by the horrific conditions of his imprisonments. But it’s what Sisi’s regime is about: revenge.

That revenge was extracted on Morsi supporter in Rabaa, the signal of death to the rule of law and sacredness of life in current Egypt. It is the era many continue to live in and for some lucky ones, observe from far.

Revenge has since extended to other presidential candidates (including shafik), human rights activists, artists, journalists, students, footballers.

So that is the tragic tale of Morsi, of the country he briefly ruled, and the people who briefly believed.

Someone understandably mentioned that this thread lacked visuals as, well, I photographed these events and this is what I usually do here. So: a few from that year.

The rest from that year are on my website. I try to post fresh photos here but a trip down the memory lane is due today. mosaabelshamy.com/egypt-a-year-o…