Shrugging off Egypt’s many crises, Sisi prepares for six more years

Over a decade at the helm of the Arab world’s most populous country, there have been times when President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt looked like a man dangling from a ledge by the tips of his fingers.

There was the time 10 years ago, when the former general seized power by deploying the army to depose Egypt’s first freely elected president, a takeover capped by the killing of at least 800 anti-coup protesters in one day. The Rabaa massacre, as it became known, brought a storm of international condemnation down on Sisi’s head.

Or take the economic meltdown of the past 21 months, when the currency crashed, prices shot skyward and many Egyptians stopped being able to afford meat or their children’s school fees. Although the International Monetary Fund offered a bailout to help cover colossal debts run up by the president, lenders and Egyptians alike seemed to be losing patience with Sisi.

Yet, a decade later, he is still president – and back for six more years, as the results of this month’s presidential election confirm. Authorities said on December 18th that Sisi had won a third term with 89.6 per cent of the vote.

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If Sisi ever felt his grip slipping, he simply brazened it out, regional crises eroding any pressure on him to reform. Small concessions over economic policy and human rights never compromised his power or that of the military-security establishment

No one doubted the outcome, given all the advantages of his authoritarian grip on the country. An extra edge came from the war next door in the Gaza Strip, which has allowed Sisi to cast himself as a strong leader at home and abroad, just as he did after conflicts in Libya, Sudan, Syria and beyond.

This is the turbulent map that is Middle East geopolitics, a multifront five-alarm fire that has made Sisi, in his obstinate way, look like a rock of stability.

If Sisi ever felt his grip slipping, he simply brazened it out, regional crises eroding any pressure on him to reform. Small concessions over economic policy and human rights never compromised his power or that of the military-security establishment that runs the country and dominates its economy.

His self-assurance came through in every public appearance.

If “you truly love Egypt,” he declared to a clapping audience in 2016, “I’m telling all Egyptians who are listening to me: Listen to my words only. Only mine.”

There were many Egyptians who seemed to do just that. After the turmoil of Egypt’s Arab Spring, when mass protests brought down authoritarian Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and the elections that followed, which brought to power an Islamist who was later widely reviled, the country greeted Sisi as a saviour.

One actress praised his “bronzed, gold skin, as gold as the sun’s rays”, which “hides a keen, analytical fire within”.

The president made the most of his carte blanche, mainly by getting shovels in the ground. He set about remaking Egypt into a modern “new republic,” erecting a huge new capital city in the desert, building miles of roads and bridges and levelling slums for redevelopment in the style of Dubai.

All of it was overseen by the military, where Sisi had spent his entire career before entering office in 2014. And much of it was paid for by new debt.

As the immense cost of his megaprojects helped send the economy into crisis, Sisi has taken to exhorting Egyptians simply to eat less

The new capital drew on ancient Egyptian symbolism, exemplifying what Robert Springborg, an expert on Egypt’s political economy, called Sisi’s brand of “Pharaonic nationalism”.

His vision of transformation was “to build ourselves and our country by dint of our hard labours and our sacrifice,” Springborg said. The president spent countless speeches exhorting Egyptians to have fewer children, work harder and eat healthier.

Lately, however, as the immense cost of his megaprojects helped send the economy into crisis, Sisi has taken to exhorting Egyptians simply to eat less.

“If the price of prosperity and progress for a nation is that it does not eat and drink,” he said during the autumn, announcing his bid for a third term, “then we don’t eat or drink”.

Sisi-mania had been cooling off for years as the middle class shrank and repression hardened.

Yet many Egyptians supported Sisi as a bulwark against terrorism and instability. Western countries also proved willing to overlook their distaste for his human rights abuses and silencing of dissent to partner with him against violent extremism and migration.

Time and again, geography made the argument for him.

To Egypt’s west is Libya’s never-ending conflict, and to its south, Sudan’s internecine bloodshed. Israel’s attacks on Gaza are unfolding just across Egypt’s eastern border. North is the Mediterranean Sea, and just beyond that is Europe, whose leaders are panicked at the prospect of a new wave of migrants.

Egypt also controls the Suez Canal, one of the world’s most vital shipping lanes. “Sisi gets a big break because of the country he rules, just by virtue of location,” said Rabab el-Mahdi, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo.

Although the Obama administration suspended military aid to Egypt over Sisi’s 2013 takeover, by 2015 rising instability in the region had persuaded the United States to reinstate Egypt to its long-time status as the world’s second-biggest recipient of US military aid.

Sisi had already learned not to rely on American friendship alone, buying more weapons from France, Russia and others. His cosiness with Moscow, especially, made the United States sit up, convincing much of Washington that the US must keep Cairo close to counter Russian influence.

Former president Donald Trump, who reportedly called Sisi “my favourite dictator”, had few qualms about the relationship. But President Joe Biden said he did, calling during his first presidential campaign for “no blank cheques” that would enable Sisi’s rights abuses.

Then, during Israel’s May 2021 war in Gaza, Egypt leveraged its contacts in Hamas, the armed group that controls the territory, to help negotiate a ceasefire, again proving its usefulness. Any US resolve over keeping Egypt at arm’s length appeared to crumble.

Egypt was also buffing its image, releasing some high-profile dissidents (while arresting far more) and pointing to talks with the opposition as evidence that it was opening up its political system.

This time, Egypt is in the headlines as the keeper of Gaza’s only gateway to the outside world, the sole border crossing where humanitarian aid can enter Gaza and through which desperate people in Gaza can leave.

There is little question that Egypt was, is, and will continue to be important. ‘We’re 7,000 years old,’ said Nabil Fahmy, a former foreign minister. ‘We don’t work in soundbites’

Cairo was also deeply involved in mediating the November 24th-30th ceasefire. Yet Qatar, a tiny Gulf monarchy, has had equal or greater prominence in negotiations, underscoring how the rise of wealthy Gulf States and Egypt’s internal troubles have shrunk its traditional role as a political and cultural beacon for the Middle East.

Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat, former Egyptian presidents, became world figures for their influence in the region. Sisi, by contrast, has offered no vision for the post-crisis Middle East beyond banalities, el-Mahdi said.

Yet there is little question that Egypt was, is, and will continue to be important. “We’re 7,000 years old,” said Nabil Fahmy, a former foreign minister. “We don’t work in soundbites.”

Egypt’s centrality – and the consequences of a financial implosion in a country of 106 million – has not been lost on international partners. The International Monetary Fund recently said it was in talks with Egypt to increase the $3 billion loan it offered last year. The European Union is accelerating some €9 billion in funding for Egypt.

Analysts and activists have long warned, however, that subsidising Sisi’s blend of stifling political repression and economic mismanagement is a bad investment.

A 2016 IMF bailout staved off a looming financial meltdown but failed to force Egypt to confront structural problems. Last year’s deal was sterner, requiring Egypt to take steps including loosening the military’s stranglehold on the economy to jump-start private sector growth.

But Egypt has stalled on meeting any of those conditions, most likely because, analysts say, the president is unwilling or unable to curb lucrative perks for the military.

“Stabilising Sisi’s regime is not stability,” said Timothy E Kaldas, the deputy director of the Washington-based Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. “With every passing year, despite all the lifelines he’s received, the standard of living for Egyptians has deteriorated.”

Before October 7th, economic frustrations were running so high that some analysts and activists predicted the president was in for a reckoning. Some wondered whether Egyptians would revolt as they did in 2011. Others speculated that the military-security establishment that underpins his rule would move to replace him.

Given the Gaza crisis, “I would have voted for him,” said Mohamed Taha (51), an out-of-work cook in a lower middle class Cairo neighbourhood. “But at this moment, we’re all hungry, people in Gaza and people here.”

Deep in debt, he had gone to the polls only because he had heard people were receiving the equivalent of about €6 for voting, allegations at which Egypt has pushed back. But after trying two polling stations, he said he was unable to get any cash.

He left without casting a ballot, and said he would not bother trying again. – This article originally appeared in The New York Times