CAIRO — A bloody night of running street battles outside President Mohammed Morsi's palace between the president's supporters and his outnumbered opponents upped the stakes in a two-week-old political crisis roiling Egypt and threatening the legitimacy of its first freely elected president.
Earlier this week, before violence erupted between pro- and anti-Morsi forces late Wednesday afternoon (Dec. 5), the crisis was primarily a political showdown over the disputed constitution that Morsi had rushed to a referendum vote on Dec. 15.