Is Egypt headed for another revolution? 22 million signatures against post-Tahrir President Mohamed Morsi.

Is Egypt headed for another revolution? 22 million signatures against post-Tahrir President Mohamed Morsi.(IT).

The youth group leading the campaign against Egypt's president says it has collected the signatures of 22 million Egyptians who want to remove the Islamist leader.

Mahmoud Badr, a leader of the Tamarod, or rebel, movement said on Saturday that 22,134,460 Egyptians have signed the petition demanding President Mohamed Morsi's ouster.Badr did not say whether there had been an independent audit of the signatures. Morsi's supporters have long questioned the authenticity of the collected signatures.

The announcement came on the eve of massive protests planned by Tamarod, which started off the campaign saying it wanted to collect more signatures than the some 13 million votes Morsi won in his narrow 2012 victory in the presidential election.

Rival protesters in Egypt's capital insist they want to avoid bloodshed during mass rallies against President Mohamed Morsi on Sunday, but both are clearly ready for a confrontation.

As the opposing sides vie for the revolution's mantle, Morsi's Islamist supporters have set up checkpoints around a Cairo rally, recalling the human chains that protected protesters during the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

Thickset men stand in rows by guard rails, hefting wooden or plastic rods and wearing hard hats and body armour. They check ID cards and frisk visitors.

"We will defend the revolution, we will defend legitimacy," a banner with a picture of Morsi reads above a stage set up at the rally of a few thousand outside a mosque.

Sunday marks Morsi's first year in office - a period his opponents say is long enough, blaming him and his Muslim Brotherhood for Egypt's economic malaise and accusing them of trying to impose strict religious values on a diverse country.

They now hope mass demonstrations will topple him just as they swept out Mubarak over two years ago.

In Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the 2011 revolt, Abdelhamid Nada, a 32-year-old accountant, pitched a tent late on Friday with eight friends who came from the Nile Delta city of Monufia. He said dozens more would join them and march to the presidential palace on Sunday.

The protests would only get violent if Brotherhood supporters provoked it, he said. "If they are foolish enough, they will do it, and if they do it, we will win."Nearby, Amr Riad, 26, collected signatures for the "Tamarod - Rebel!" petition drive against Morsi that claims to have collected 22 million signatures. "We're peaceful. But if those who come at us are violent, we'll defend ourselves," he said.

Morsi's supporters talk in similar terms. Abdelhakim Abdelfattah, 47, said he came from Suez to join the Islamist protest. Some expected Sunday to pass peacefully, but others feared a repeat of clashes between the two camps that broke out late last year, he said.

If Morsi's supporters sensed the president was under threat, they would go to the streets in even greater numbers, he added.

"They'll come down to defend his legitimacy, not with weapons, but with their bodies," Abdelfattah said. "What's the nature of this legitimacy? The ballot box."

U.S. President Barack Obama called on Egypt's government and opposition on Saturday to engage each other in constructive dialogue and prevent violence spilling out across the region.Read the full story here.