Al-Sisi stands for re-election demanding sacrifices
In a fiery military harangue, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has announced his intention to run for re-election in the early elections next December.
To the surprise of supporters and opponents alike, al-Sisi has literally and bluntly demanded sacrifices from citizens. "If the construction [of new urban mega-complexes], the development and progress of the country must be done at the cost of hunger and deprivation, it will be done; don't complain afterwards that you prefer to eat," he bluntly told those attending a conference originally intended to celebrate "the ten years of successes achieved" since he overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
The forcefulness displayed by the Egyptian rais is interpreted not only as his absolute certainty that no one will move him from the presidential chair, but also his determination to press ahead with the projects undertaken to modernise the country, described as "excessively pharaonic" by his detractors.
Of the former, there is little, if any, doubt. In the previous elections, Al-Sisi won with overwhelming results: 96 and 97 per cent, respectively. He also allowed himself to amend the constitution in 2019 to introduce an extension of his presidential term to six years, setting a maximum of three terms in office, although it should be added that this would only be for the time being.
As for the second: the construction of a new capital city to decongest the crowded, polluted and chaotic Cairo; the implementation of high-speed rail lines linking the country's main tourist centres by train, as well as other road infrastructures, in addition to emptying the state coffers and tripling the foreign debt, have caused inflation to soar by 40% and the Egyptian pound to devalue by 50%. In fact, the announcement of early elections is seen by some analysts as a smokescreen to cover up the trauma of the devaluation.
Popular protests against the evidence of these results are repressed as usual, given that demonstrations are legally forbidden in Egypt. Despite this, there are those who intend to run in the elections as an alternative candidate to al-Sisi. The first and most prominent to speak out is Ahmed al-Tantaoui, 44, a former MP and a regular critic of the president. He has chosen the popular route to do so, i.e. to obtain at least 25,000 signatures from as many citizens in support of his candidacy. Al-Tantaoui, who launched this campaign in mid-September, denounces both the harassment to which the police subject the volunteers in charge of collecting signatures, and the rejection of many of them by the administrative authorities on all sorts of excuses and grounds. The slogan of his election campaign is "restoring the rule of law", a slogan he spreads through social networks and independent media.
Other candidates, who have not yet made their candidacy official, seem to be opting for the other route, that of obtaining the endorsement of twenty members of the current parliament. As in previous elections, there is renewed suspicion that these candidacies are being encouraged by the presidency itself, so that a variety of names can be put forward to voters that in no way threatens what is presumed to be another overwhelming victory for Al-Sisi.