For most of the summer of 2013, what could be described as “Sisi mania” reigned in Egypt. Songs, sandwiches, music videos, poems and even pajamas paid tribute to Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the military officer who had just overthrown President Mohamed Morsi.
For most of the summer of 2013, what could be described as “Sisi mania” reigned in Egypt. Songs, sandwiches, music videos, poems and even pajamas paid tribute to Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the military officer who had just overthrown President Mohamed Morsi.
From the outside, it was a bizarre spectacle as millions of Egyptians rejoiced at the military’s ruthless and brutal intervention against the Muslim Brotherhood apparatchik, who had become president just a year earlier, in June 2012. Even so-called revolutionaries and longtime critics of Egypt’s authoritarian political system genuinely seemed to worship the minor military leader, who promised them a fresh start after 18 turbulent months, beginning with the late January 2011 uprising against longtime leader Hosni Mubarak.
While Morsi was imprisoned and Muslim Brotherhood members were dead, arrested or on the run, Sisi promised Egyptians better days but warned his fellow citizens to be patient. That was wise. Egypt’s complex economic, social and political problems had only worsened as Egypt lurched from crisis to crisis during the difficult and short-lived democratic transition. But a decade later, Sisi has not rewarded the Egyptians for their patience. On the contrary, the man who should have saved Egypt is now bringing about its downfall.
Sisi promised the Egyptians prosperity, but Egypt is broke. The stats are stunning. Inflation is nearly 37 percent and a single US dollar fetches 30 Egyptian pounds. (When Sisi came to power, it was about £7 per dollar.) The country’s international debt is nearly $163 billion, and its total debt is projected to reach nearly 93 percent of the country’s GDP by 2023. Government officials forced to come to terms Egypt’s finances are akin to a shell game, with money being moved in vain to hide the country’s precarious economic situation.
Sisi has explained that the country’s economic difficulties are the result of issues beyond his control, most notably the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These crises have undoubtedly created significant economic challenges that countries, including the United States, have struggled to deal with. Still, Sisi’s protests are clearly a discursive strategy to downplay his own guilt in further impoverishing Egypt.
The President has embarked on a debt-fuelled spending spree on mega-projects that have little economic justification. The most powerful and obscene of these is the New Administrative Capital, which is currently in its first phase and has so far cost over $45 billion. When the United Arab Emirates and China pulled out of the project, Egyptians footed the bill by adding huge debt to the country’s balance sheet.
In addition to building a new city lock with storage and a barrel in the middle of the desert, Sisi oversees a number of other large projects. These include a new “summer capital” on the north coast, a nuclear power plant (in a country with excess electricity), a sustainable city in the Nile Delta and the revitalization of a failed Mubarak-era mega-project in northern Egypt called Toshka. This came after the opening of a Suez Canal bypass – dubbed the “New Suez Canal” – in 2015.
Most of these projects have dubious economic value but are (or were) politically important. They should be tangible demonstrations of Egypt’s rebirth under the steady hand of its new military officer and his Defense Ministry colleagues. The message may have been that Egypt can still achieve great things, but these mega-projects have become an unsustainable economic burden on the country.
Officials point out that many Egyptians were employed in the construction of these projects. Good enough – but at what cost? Governments have a responsibility to build infrastructure, but the long-term benefits must outweigh the short-term costs. New bridges, roads, interchanges, airport upgrades and subways are worthwhile – and Egypt has done some of them – because these projects translate into greater and more efficient economic activity. The Suez Canal Bypass might fit into this category, but the Summer Capital and the New Administrative Capital are huge money pits that Egypt doesn’t have.
It is hard to imagine that within a decade Sisi – whose patrons in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were reviving the Egyptian economy with direct cash transfers, who was securing loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on favorable terms and who was investing in his Western governments, enjoyed by supporters of great benevolence, have taken a poor country and made it poorer.
In its most recent agreement with the IMF, the Egyptian government agreed to sell state assets, including those owned by the military. But buyers were few because either these assets are worth nothing, no one knows how to put a value on them, or potential buyers are sitting on the sidelines waiting for another Egyptian pound depreciation (the fourth since March). 2022) so they can get all the quality companies out there at even cheaper prices. Recently, the government announced a $1.9 billion sale of state assets, which is positive but does little to ease widespread economic woes. The Egyptians rose up in 2011 because they wanted dignity. A bailout of government assets is hardly dignified.
Rather than continue to wait for the prosperity promised by their leaders, Egyptians are leaving the country in increasing numbers. Most accounts of the sinking of the overloaded fishing boat off the coast of Greece in June overlooked the fact that there were possibly 300 to 350 Egyptians on board. And while the number of Egyptians migrating to Europe by boat increased after the January 2011 uprising, it has continued to rise in recent years. From the beginning of 2023 to June, more than 6,000 Egyptians have attempted to reach Italy by sea. They represent the second largest group of migrants hoping to make it to the Italian coast. In 2022, around 22,000 Egyptians were looking for a better life on the other side of the Mediterranean. Of course, given the difficult economic situation they face, it makes sense that more Egyptians would leave the country.
Egypt’s economic troubles only reinforce the idea that the country is an exhausted force. In the 1970s, President Anwar el-Sadat told US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that Egypt was an influential player that could help secure regional peace and become the linchpin of an anti-Soviet regional order. Sadat (according to both his character and his political career) exaggerated. Egypt is an important partner of the USA. But with few exceptions – such as Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm – it never had the resources to play the role US politicians hoped for when Cairo switched its foreign policy to the United States.
And although Sisi is in the room at key meetings like the recently concluded Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg or last summer’s GCC+3 meeting with US President Joe Biden, the Egyptian leader’s attendance appears to be pro forma. Presence in the room confers a degree of influence, but Egypt is more of an observer than a player at these gatherings.
The most glaring example of Egypt’s decline and the hollow foreign policy that has accompanied it is Cairo’s near-absence in the civil war in Sudan – the country’s backyard. In the early stages of the conflict, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces held hostage almost 200 Egyptian soldiers and airmen who were in Sudan to conduct exercises with the Sudanese army. With the help of the Emirati diplomats, they were released relatively quickly.
After this humiliating episode, the Egyptians stood aside and watched as the Saudis played a major role in the evacuation of third-country nationals from Sudan. Sisi then left any mediation efforts in Sudan to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (with the help of the Americans). But some in Cairo must be ashamed that Saudi Arabia ended up playing the pivotal role in a conflict that Egypt, according to its own myths, was supposed to lead. When Cairo hosted a conference of Sudan’s seven neighbors in mid-July to push for a ceasefire, even that didn’t go well. It was little more than a talk fest and a photo op – and during his address to the conclave, Ethiopian leader Abiy Ahmed thanked Saudi Arabia for its mediation efforts.
Recently, an astute Egypt analyst tweeted, “I can honestly say I see no way out.” I suspect that by “this” she meant the ruin Sisi wreaked in Egypt. About a decade after the Egyptians rose up and demanded bread, liberty and social justice, they have none of it.
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