A few days ago, the people of the Arab Republic of Egypt voted massively to give their support to major changes in their country’s constitution. Among the changes was a provision that the President would acquire the power to appoint judges and the public prosecutor. The military, under the Commander in Chief – the President, would be given broad new powers to ‘safeguard the constitution’. A second parliamentary chamber would be introduced. A 25% quota would be reserved for women in Parliament. And the President, who was already serving the second of two four-year terms, would now be entitled to up to four terms, making a total possible tenure of sixteen years. Technically the incumbent, previously due to leave office in 2022, could stay in power till 2030.
Opposition groups and human rights activists have pronounced themselves outraged, warning of a deepening and extension of what is already an iron-grip dictatorship.
The President in question is, of course, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. He was, until he retired from the Egyptian Army to run for the Presidency in 2014, a Field Marshal in the Egyptian Army. He is, in addition, though some people are not happy about this, the current Chairman of the African Union.
A mere ten years ago, not a lot of people, even in Egypt, knew about Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
At the time of the Egyptian version of the Arab Spring, which led to the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, el-Sisi was an obscure officer in the upper echelons of the Egyptian army, having risen steadily through the ranks from the time he joined up in 1977.
After the election of Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood to the Presidency, the new President had a running battle with the top brass of the Armed Forces. He eventually succeeded in getting rid of them. He reached down to pick el-Sisi as his Minister of Defence, perhaps expecting that he would be beholden to him.
It proved to be a fatal choice for Morsi.
In a short space of time the government was in trouble with a large section of the population. It got no help from the military.
In July 2013, el-Sisi led a military coup that removed Morsi from power and put him in prison. The constitution was abrogated, and a new political road map drawn up for the nation. An interim President was appointed till elections.
el-Sisi, ‘under pressure from supporters’, resigned from the army and stood for election as President, with a vocal commitment to bring order to the nation and ‘crush’ the Muslim Brotherhood.
Needless to say, el-Sisi won the 2014 election by a large majority.
Four years later, he would win reelection by a landslide, garnering 97% of the vote.
On both planks of his avowed intentions, President el-Sisi has been true to his word. The Muslim Brotherhood- the arrowhead of political Islam in the Middle East, has been driven underground in Egypt, although it is alive and active in the mainstream in Jordan and elsewhere. Regarding law and order, Sisi has ruled with a firm hand, but it is still work in progress. There have been bombings and other terrorist incidents, targeting the tourism industry for the obvious purposes of getting media attention and crippling the nation’s economy. Places of worship belonging to the Christian minority have been attacked. The most famous terrorist incident was the bombing of a plane soon after take off from Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt’s glamorous resort that aims to show the world that Egypt is open for business.
There is more on the negative side of the ledger. The Sinai Peninsula used to be a major site for Christian pilgrimage from Nigeria and other places. There pilgrims climb up to the top of the mountain where Moses received the Ten Commandments. For many it was the high point of their visit to the holy lands. It has become a no-go area controlled by Al Qaida linked terrorists. The massive hospitality industry that was the mainstay of the economy of the local community has since gone to the dogs.
el-Sisi is today a prominent and highly controversial figure on the world scene. He is a ‘strongman’, a no-nonsense leader. He is popular with Donald Trump and the right-wing media. He is regarded as part of the ‘populist’ or ‘nationalist’ tendency that swept Trump into power in USA and is sweeping across Europe and part of the Middle East. He has been prominent in the war against Islamic State (IS) in Syria and is a close ally of American protégé and Saudi heir apparent – Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). He is part of the coalition fighting the war against the Houthis in Yemen.
Some ‘progressive’ pan-Africanists, worried about his politics, expressed misgivings about the prospect of el Sisi becoming Chairman of the African Union. The few Arab ‘strongmen’ who have gained acceptance as ‘warriors’ in the African cause, people such as Gamal abdel Nasser and Muammar Ghaddafi, have tended to come from the ‘left’ of the political spectrum. el Sisi, in so far as he can be fitted into a conventional pigeonhole, is clearly ‘right’ wing in his economics and his social policies.
What is happening in Egypt may be described, at best, as a ‘militarized democracy’.Many Egyptians swear by their President. Christian Copts feel their safety and religious rights are better protected under the ‘iron’ President than they were under the Muslim Brotherhood. But many Egyptians remain opposed to Sisi for his heavy handedness and his failure to provide a level playing ground for democratic choice. Vocal critics of government, including writers, are in prison or in exile. Freedom of the Press has been firmly curtailed. Many in the creative community believe that their country is in a period of darkness worse than the worst days of Hosni Mubarak. They vow they will not be silenced. For such people, their worst fears have just been confirmed by the result of the constitutional referendum and the extension and expansion of el-Sisi’s tenure and authority.
As Egyptians struggle over the future of their President and their nation, the rest of the world can only watch and try to read their body language.
Femi Olugbile
