Waiting in the long queue for fuel at a petrol station not far from the Heliopolis presidential palace on Monday evening, some drivers were tuning their radios to listen to the speech President Mohamed Morsi was scheduled to make. The expected theme was the political dispute with Ethiopia over Egypt's share of Nile water. But whatever concern they felt over possible serious water problems most drivers were more anxious to hear the head of the executive address acute economic and daily life problems, not least the recurrent shortages of electricity and fuel. “I have been queuing up for over 30 minutes but I don't mind because I know that there will be enough fuel when my turn comes. This is the third station that I have been to. The first two did not have any fuel and were not expecting any refills before midnight,” said Karim, an accountant in his early 30s. Karim was hoping — “for a change” — to hear specific plans from the president to address “this horrible situation we live in”. “I can't complain too much because at least I get my salary at the end of the month from the company I work for. Some of my friends have to wait for a week or two before they get paid. What is very difficult are the recurrent electricity cuts in the summer, especially with my newborn daughter who cannot get to sleep without a fan or an AC on.” Karim is convinced the fuel shortage is “a deliberate act on the side of the government”. “They want to scare people. They want us to think we should refrain from joining the 30 June demonstrations to allow for stability and avoid further economic ordeals. We will not bow to this pressure. I am joining the demonstrations — for sure,” said Karim. Rami, a taxi driver in his late 30s queuing at a Giza petrol station, thinks the same plan. “They cannot convince us that things are in deterioration because of the demonstrations. They have been in office for a year. It is their catastrophic management that is causing these problems and prompting the demonstrations,” he said. Neither Karim nor Rami have been politically active before. Both men, however, decided to support the Tamarod campaign calling for early presidential elections, and which has already gathered millions of signatures for a petition withdrawing confidence from President Morsi. “We are getting close to the 15 million signatures we targeted for 30 June,” says Tamarod activist Hassan Shahine. The target was set to outnumber the votes that secured Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi victory in the presidential elections and allowed him to be sworn in on 30 June. A year on and Tamarod, together with the National Salvation Front (NSF) — a loose gathering of anti-Morsi liberal political forces and figures — have chosen the same date for nationwide demonstrations demanding fresh presidential elections. Shahine acknowledges that not everyone who signed the petition will join the demonstrations “that will only start on 30 June”. “But we know, and they know, that there will be millions of Egyptians from all walks of life taking to the streets on 30 June to demand Morsi, and by extension the Muslim Brotherhood, step down and hold early presidential elections.” “Time is up for Morsi,” insists Shahine. During his Monday evening speech, delivered at the Cairo Conference Hall before an audience comprising of Islamist figures, Morsi, whose default position is to shrug off any criticism of his or his government's performance, attempted to sound a conciliatory note. He repeated a call for national dialogue which has been consistently rebuffed by NSF leaders who refuse to forget the way Morsi granted himself provisional extra judiciary powers following the last round of national dialogue in which NSF leaders agreed to participate. “I am again offering a call for national dialogue. I am even willing to approach each and every group in the search for national unity given the serious threats our nation is facing,” Morsi told his cheering audience at the Cairo Conference Centre event that had been organised by the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party. The invited audience of Islamists may have welcomed Morsi's statements, but they fell on otherwise deaf ears. “It's too late. And it's a manoeuvre, not a serious offer. The Muslim Brotherhood has no credibility left. We've believed them before. They've squandered our good faith,” says Al-Sayed Al-Toukhi of the NSF. According to Al-Toukhi, Morsi would not have made the offer if he was not “deeply concerned about the 30 June”. Inas Mekkawi, a member of both the NSF and Tamarod, believes “it is far too late for ambiguous offers.” “For over a year we have been asking Morsi to forge a consensus with other political forces but he has declined to act. We asked for an independent prosecutor-general and an efficient government and to fix the controversial constitution drafted to the taste of Islamists and he did nothing. Now we refuse to be deceived by calls for national solidarity in the face of external threats that are in any case a result of Morsi's mismanagement of state affairs.” The lack of interest among the opposition to consider any dialogue with Morsi was demonstrated days before the presidential offer for national dialogue resurfaced on Monday, when reports appeared about a secret meeting between NSF figure Amr Moussa and Muslim Brotherhood strongman and Deputy General Guide Khairat Al-Shater. Having defended the meeting held at the house of Ayman Nour, founder of the Ghad Al-Thawra Party, as a last ditch attempt to talk sense to Muslim Brotherhood leaders ahead of possible clashes between anti-Morsi protesters and those who support him, Moussa quickly made it clear he agreed with other NSF leaders that it is now impossible to pursue any consensual agreement with the Muslim Brotherhood. “Our position is clear. It was announced on Saturday in an NSF meeting following the Moussa-Al-Shater encounter: any talks, direct or indirect, announced or otherwise with Morsi and his group, are off. They must now bow to the will of the people and leave,” says Al-Toukhi. Even within Brotherhood ranks there is a growing belief that some concessions — possibly including the appointment of a new prime minister and a committee to revisit controversial passages in a constitution that was passed with the support of less than 20 per cent of eligible voters — will have to be made. Yasser Al-Sheemi, Middle East analyst for the International Crisis Group, does not anticipate that demonstrations on 30 June will force Morsi to step down, though they might force some changes. “We are going to have a few days of demonstrations and counter-demonstrations and we might see some violence but we don't seem to be in the kind of situation that could eventually oust a president who was democratically elected a year ago and who managed to garner sustainable, even if declining, support for the constitution that was adopted a few months after his election,” says Al-Sheemi. He adds that after a few days each side is likely to realise that they will have to make concessions, “but it will not get much beyond that and it is extremely unlikely that we will see a coup”. Neither Shahine nor Mekkawi expect 30 June to end with an announcement that Morsi will be stepping down. They concede that the call for early presidential elections is a tough one. Yet like many across the opposition they are determined that 30 June will be the beginning of the end for Morsi. “It is the beginning of a new phase of the 25 January Revolution which ousted Hosni Mubarak to usher in democracy and justice, not to see him replaced by Morsi,” says Shahine. Mekkawi insists that 30 June will mark “the beginning of a new revolution that will not end in a few days due to the heat, or with the advent of Ramadan on 10 July as some are hoping”. “We are taking to the streets on 30 June and we are not leaving before the announcement of early presidential elections — come what may.”
