Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood ‘party consensus candidate’ in Egypt, dies after six years in jail
Egypt’s first freely elected president failed to allay fears his party was laying the groundwork for theocracy.
(The Christian Science Monitor) Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, who died during a courtroom appearance June 17, was remembered by some as a leader who could not live up to the task of pulling Egypt from decades of dictatorship into a 21st-century democracy.
Morsi struggled to fit the bill as “Egypt’s George Washington” following the 2011 popular overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.
A soft-spoken engineer who completed his PhD at the University of Southern California, Morsi was neither a firebrand nor an innovator and not known for having the common touch. He rose through the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood, then Egypt’s largest opposition movement, by keeping his head down and following orders with unwavering loyalty.
