This weekend's election certainly won't be the final word. Morsi is facing Ahmed Shafik, the former commander of the Egyptian Air Force, and the last Prime Minster to have served under Mubarak. Without question, Shafik is the favored candidate of SCAF and the old regime, and the choice between him and Morsi has been painful for liberals and revolutionaries. Many people in Cairo have told me that they don't intend to vote.

But I suspect that yesterday's decision will inspire more to make the effort—and probably this will benefit Morsi. "Every time they do something like this, it helps us," Zakaria, the Justice and Freedom party spokesperson, told me. "I don't know why they don't learn that."

You can read Peter Hessler's full article for The New Yorker here.