Sisi Tries to Rebrand in the Face of Dissatisfaction in Egypt—and Within His Regime
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Loading... - Angela Auge
- 07 Nov 2022
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Next year will mark a decade since Abdel Fattah al-Sisi seized power in a coup d'etat against Egypt's democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi. By the spring of 2014, Sisi had symbolically consolidated power by taking 97 percent of the vote for the presidency in a tightly controlled election. From then on, not much seemed to change in the style or substance of Sisi's strict rule.
He appeared to be a man in a hurry, contemptuous of politics and politicians, and disinterested in lengthy personal public appearances. Quiet and reserved by nature, he presumably calculated that the megaprojects he charged Egypt's military with implementing, coupled with the suppression of all dissent and menacing promises of a brighter future for all, were sufficient to ensure obedience, if not loyalty.
He seemed not to want to waste his time pandering to the Egyptian public, even by holding formal public events or consulting with civilian experts. His was a one-man show, with the citizen audience only there to cheer dutifully.
Yet 2022 has seen a significant change in Sisi's leadership style and behavior. The year has been marked by a series of high-profile gatherings, including the "national dialogue" that members of the tamed opposition and token activists were invited to, which is due to resume following this month's U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Late last month, Cabinet members, prominent businesspeople and leading economists gathered in a newly built hall in the new administrative capital, under construction in the desert outside Cairo, for a government-organized economic conference, where Sisi spoke at the opening and closing sessions for almost three hours.
Preceding that confab, which aimed "to draw a roadmap for the future of the Egyptian economy," the government had launched, amid considerable fanfare, a new state ownership policy, which specified the economic sectors that will be privatized, retained in state hands or shared between the two. Read More...
