Shrugging off Egypt’s crises, El-Sissi gets set for six more years

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 el-Sissi.

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 Monday that el-Sissi had won a third term with 89.6% of the vote.

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 el-Sissi 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 el-Sissi, in his obstinate way, look like a rock of stability.

If el-Sissi 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 el-Sissi as a savior.

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 leveling slums for redevelopment in the style of the United Arab Emirates’ Dubai.

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

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

His vision of transformation was “to build ourselves and our country by dint of our hard labors 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, el-Sissi has taken to admonishing 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 this fall, announcing his bid for a third term, “then we don’t eat or drink.”

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

Yet many Egyptians supported el-Sissi 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.

“Sissi 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 el-Sissi’s 2013 takeover, by 2015 rising instability in the region had persuaded the United States to reinstate Egypt to its longtime status as the world’s second-biggest recipient of U.S. military aid.

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

Former President Donald Trump, who reportedly called el-Sissi “my favorite dictator,” had few qualms about the relationship. But President Joe Biden said he did, calling during his first presidential campaign for “no blank checks” that would enable el-Sissi’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 cease-fire, again proving its usefulness. Any U.S. 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 where pressure is building for desperate people in Gaza to be allowed to leave.

Cairo was also deeply involved in mediating the recent temporary cease-fire. 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 el-Sadat, former Egyptian presidents, became world figures for their influence in the region. El-Sissi, 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 sound bites.”

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 $10 billion in funding for Egypt.

Analysts and activists have long warned, however, that subsidizing el-Sissi’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.

“Stabilizing Sissi’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 Oct. 7, 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 neighborhood. “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 $6.67 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.