Sisi and new/old Egypt

S P SETH

The former Egyptian army strongman, General Abdel Fattah el Sisi, is now the country’s new President, which formalizes his position as Egypt’s real ruler since the army coup last year. At the time of deposing Mohamed Morsi as the country’s elected President, Egypt’s military was very sensitive about its characterization as a military coup. From the beginning the army had sought to unsettle the new Muslim Brotherhood government, but Morsi managed to last a bit longer than the army would have liked. The Morsi administration had sought to coopt the army and made Sisi the defence minister, as well as head of the army, because of his good Islamic credentials.  They believed that he would, over time, fit into their ideological mould, but it didn’t happen for a number of reasons. First, the army, now led by Sisi, was not willing to become subservient to the Muslim Brotherhood’s scheme of things. Having got rid of Hosni Mubarak by throwing their support behind the protesters, they didn’t want to become a tool of an Islamist Mubarak in the person of Morsi and the Brotherhood. From the time of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s military had strongly distrusted the Muslim Brotherhood with its messianic Islamist agenda. Nasser had shown no mercy in dealing with the Brotherhood, throwing them into jails in large numbers. Against this backdrop, Morsi and the Brotherhood were wrong to think that they might, over time, bend the army to serve its ideological and political agenda. But, this time, they believed that the country’s transition to democracy with Morsi’ in the presidential seat gave them the right credentials. As we know this didn’t work.

Second, in their hurry to establish political dominance and pursue an Islamist agenda, the Brotherhood started to lose the support of the idealist, secular and young pioneers of the revolution that brought down Hosni Mubarak. In the process they started behaving like the Mubarak regime by issuing arbitrary decrees and creating a climate of fear. Which gave the army a civilian popular base with large-scale anti-Morsi demonstrations. Therefore, there was some truth to the army’s claim that their coup, calling it another revolution, was people’s will of sorts. However, not long after the coup the army also went after the secular youth when they started criticizing the military, realizing that they had been cheated of their revolution to be replaced with another dose of military rule.

As for the Brotherhood, the army was on a mission to destroy the organization by branding it terrorist and banning it. As part of its crackdown, it put thousands of its supporters behind bars and more than a thousand were summarily sentenced to death though some had their sentences commuted to long jail terms. The entire leadership of the Brotherhood is behind bars. It is reported that its spiritual guide, Dr Mohamed Badie and 182 supporters had their death sentences confirmed by an Egyptian court. The army let loose a volley of violence killing 1000 people. Some militant groups also targeted the army and police forces, identifying themselves as an al Qaeda offshoot, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, from northern Sinai.

Undoubtedly, there was a swell of support for the army as the Brotherhood-led Morsi government had lost much of the goodwill it had when it came to power. And that was because it refused to be inclusive, committed to pursue its Islamist agenda in the shortest span of time. Having convinced itself of popular support, the army decided to put up Sisi as their candidate to be the country’s civilian president. With the army in virtual total control of the state, Sisi was assured of victory and, lo and behold, he won about 97 per cent of the votes polled, the kind of results Hosni Mubarak used to claim. Even with such exaggerated claims, the legitimacy of the electoral process and its result is less than credible. For one thing, with all the state’s resources to mobilize people for Sisi’s ‘crowning’, less than 50 per cent turned up to vote. And the celebrations of Sisi’s victory were marred with a video of the mass gang rape of a girl (s) in Tahrir Square. To make it worse, some of the official media tried to blame it either on the Brotherhood to mar the celebrations, some calling it even a fake video and so on. It is not a good augury for an administration claiming popular support.

Egypt is a highly polarized country. Even though the Sisi regime is determined to crush the Brotherhood, its history has shown remarkable resilience to maintain its organizational structure through a network of countrywide cells around it. Under sustained army crackdown over a period of time, they might revert to their old role as a network (at local level) of charity and social services organization, to be resurrected into a political role at an opportune time. As things stand, there is no hope that Sisi as President will be able to deliver goods for Egypt’s suffering masses. Apart from ruling with a large stick, and depending on the largess of Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf rulers, the new/old rulers of Egypt have no clear idea or plan to pull out the the country from its deep morass. In some ways, Sisi looks like a newer and younger version of Hosni Mubarak. And we know how Egypt was left behind in everyway under the old dictator.

Egypt is in a terrible shape with its rock bottom economy and broken down social fabric.  Sisi’s dalliance with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf kingdoms as Egypt’s cash cow will not help much as its problems have deep roots. This might even make things worse by making the country a handmaiden of Saudi interests that are backward looking. They simply look to resurrect a Hosni Mubarak-like strongman hopefully to rule Egypt for another 30 years. And that will be a recipe for disaster. What Egypt needs is an inclusive democracy focusing on the country’s economic recovery. The military, from its position of strength and the great need of Egypt’s people for economic and physical security, can play that role. But will it do by continuing to suppress and repress Brotherhood, as well as its youthful secular critics? And if it does, Egypt will continue to wallow in its sorrows, making things even worse in an already unstable region. 

Note: this article first appeared in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au