Sisi's Presidency Is Inevitable, but Egypt’s Future Remains Uncertain

Former Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who led the coup to overturn the Muslim Brotherhood government last July, announced on Wednesday that he’s going to run for president.

He’s going to win.

A recent poll found that 51 percent of the country’s voters expect to vote for him. Less than 2 percent preferred another candidate.

Sisi delayed his announcement for months, at least partly because he was intimidated by the public’s huge expectations. But following public rallies, military approval of his candidacy, and a ridiculous pop-music video, he finally made his move. His first campaign speech highlighted three important issues: the economy, public health, and security.

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When Sisi wins, he will face a broken economy, an out-of-control security sector, and impatient countrymen — who have revolted against two governments in the last three years — eager for solutions to Egypt’s troubles. But it appears that his main idea for dealing with the country’s problems is to force Egyptians to endure unprecedented austerity measures.

“I cannot make miracles,” he said during his speech. “Rather, I propose hard work and self-denial.”

In remarks earlier this month to a conference of young doctors and students, Sisi advised his audience, “The country will not make progress by using words. It will make progress by working, and through perseverance, impartiality, and altruism. Possibly one or two generations will [have to suffer] so that the remaining generations live.”

His supporters could be in for a shock.

In the Ma’sara district of Cairo, 73-year-old Farouk Abdul Nasser told VICE News that he believes Sisi will improve the economy, “so that everyone has enough to eat.” Nasser works to support two unemployed adult sons and their families. “I want young people to be able to work,” he said.

But Sisi has spoken in a series of leaked recordings about cutting salaries and government subsidies for bread, energy, and other essentials. “If we become short of food, can you stand it?” he asked at one point, as if to the Egyptian people. “Can you stand it if I take away subsidies in one go?”

Egypt’s health care system is also a mess. Doctors in public hospitals are paid the equivalent of $172 per month and have to work additional jobs to support themselves. Many in the country are without health insurance and medicine is expensive. Hepatitis C is rife.

“Millions of Egyptians are sick and cannot find a cure,” Sisi acknowledged in the speech on Wednesday.

Unfortunately, his record on healthcare is limited to his attendance at a surreal Egyptian military presentation in which it implausibly claimed to have developed a cure for AIDS and hepatitis C.

“I take AIDS from the patient, and feed the patient on AIDS,” the general announcing the discovery said, bizarrely. “I give it to him as a kebab skewer to feed on.” He thanked Sisi for supporting the research.

As for terrorism, Sisi noted in his campaign speech that Egypt “needs to regain its posture and power,” and acknowledged threats posed “by parties who seek the destruction of our life, safety, and security.”

While the threat is real, the state has focused on blaming the Muslim Brotherhood, entirely without evidence, for carrying out a series of bombings and shootings that have been claimed by various jihadist groups. Repression of the Brotherhood has left more than than 1,000 dead and at least 16,000 imprisoned — 529 members were notoriously sentenced to death on Monday. But the campaign against the Brotherhood hasn’t ended militant attacks; six military policemen were shot dead at a checkpoint on the northern outskirts of Cairo earlier this month.

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Other Egyptians worry about police brutality. Corruption within the security forces incited public anger that fuelled the 2011 revolution. But after Sisi’s overthrow of the government, police torture and bribe-taking have become even more common.

Samer Ali, an east Cairo shop-owner, is among the many who hope that Sisi can change things. “We need the police when we have a problem, but they go in too hard, they have no training. Maybe they will listen to Sisi,” he told VICE News.

Ali is optimistic that Sisi’s military background will give him the authority to manage public opinion and the country’s sclerotic state bureaucracy, which he can leverage to push badly needed reforms in security policy, as well as in other areas.

But Timothy Kaldas, a professor of politics at Nile University, doubts Sisi has much interest in police reform. “There is this myth that the army are the good cop and the police are the bad cop, but really the police are just the repressive arm of a military authoritarian regime,” he told VICE News.

“Sisi is going to win, there’s no doubt,” Kaldas said.

Well, he has apparently been dreaming about this moment — literally. In one of the leaked recordings, Sisi told a sympathetic journalist that he has long had visions that predict the future. In one such vision, he heard himself say: “I’m going to be the president of the republic.”

That much seems assured.