EGYPT CONTENT AND CALM ABOUT CERTAINTY OF SISI’S RE-ELECTION
Low turnout so far may disappoint government but voters take comfort in civil stability and safer streets
As Egypt entered its second day of voting yesterday, residents of the middle-class Nasr city neighbourhood told of the country’s transformation from the chaos and conflict of 2013 to an atmosphere of subdued stability, characterising the administration of President Abdel Fatah El Sisi.
In 2013 the Rabba Square traffic interchange at the heart of Nasr city was the site of a bloody confrontation between Egypt’s security forces and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt declared a month-long state of emergency after those clashes left more than 150 dead, according to the country’s Health Ministry.
“The Brotherhood had taken over and this entire neighbourhood lived in fear,” said Amira Sayed, a 45-year-old resident of Nasr city who brought her seven-year-old daughter with her to the polling station at Abbas El Akkad Secondary School, a kilometre west of Rabaa Square. “Now we feel safe on the street and are no longer afraid of letting our daughters walk outside.”
Ms Sayed said that there seemed to be more women than men participating in the presidential ballot.
“The state has started applying the law to the harassers and oppressors of women in the streets and the women of Egypt have noticed this,” Ms Sayed said.
But turnout appeared low yesterday and polling officials observed a significant degree of complacency among voters.
The only other candidate on the ballot, Moussa Mustafa Moussa, registered at the last minute and supports Mr El Sisi.
With the outcome largely known, the government hopes to boost turnout and show it has popular support.
Voting is being held over three days, from Monday to today, as a way of encouraging participation among Egypt’s nearly 60 million eligible voters. “The participation so far is disappointing,” said Heba Kamel, a judge and resident of Nasr city serving as a polling official. “We are waiting and hoping that people show up tonight and tomorrow.”
More than 4,000 citizens are registered at the Abbas El Akkad precinct but the transparent plastic box able to hold up to 750 marked cards was less than 20 per cent full with only about 112 ballots.
In a nearby office block on Anwar El Mofty Street, Ezzat Morsi, who runs an international shipping logistics company, said he was proud that his wife, sons and daughter joined him in voting to re-elect Mr Sisi.
“Too many Egyptians are lazy and expect others to take the responsibilities for them,” Mr Morsi said. “But we remember the days when customers were afraid to come here and the Muslim Brotherhood supporters were relieving themselves in the streets.”
Ten kilometres to the east, in the predominantly Coptic Christian Shobra district, Malak Zakaria, a 47-year-old butcher, directly credits Mr Sisi for his own economic survival.
“In 2009 Mubarak used the swine flu scare as an excuse to order the elimination of Egypt’s entire herd of pork,” Mr Zakaria said.
“And there’s no comparison between the terror we felt during Morsi’s rule and the freedom Christians have today with Sisi,” whose administration allowed him and other Coptic butchers to resume selling bacon, ham and ribs from pigs raised in nearby Mokattam, a neighbourhood adjacent to Cairo’s citadel.
Behind Mr Zakaria’s shop on Shobra’s Tera’a El Bulacia Street, the ballot box at a girls’ preparatory school had also been filled to just 20 per cent of its capacity.
“El Sisi is making sure we all live together in peace,” said Sayid Ali Shabaan, 21, a Muslim resident of Shobra who
works as a seller of street food near the Ramsis train station.
“It’s not just that the project he is working on is big – he has a view of Egypt that is about building a future for all of us together.”
Late yesterday, Mahmoud Al Sherif, the official spokesman of the National Elections Commission, lashed out at international media reports suggesting Coptic Christians were the strongest pillar of support for Mr El Sisi. “Reports that Copts are voting in higher numbers than Muslims are complete nonsense.”
But even Mr El Sisi’s liberal critics concede that the president had successfully sidelined the Muslim Brotherhood as he moves towards his second four-year term.
“El Sisi has split the poorest citizens from the Brotherhood by making sure the underprivileged have enough to eat,” said Dr Hussein Gohar, a Cairo gynaecologist and international secretary of Egypt’s Social Democratic Party.
“It used to be the Brotherhood distributing food to the underprivileged,” Dr Gohar said.
“El Sisi made sure that trucks operated by the army and other state organisations now sell basics like meat, sugar and cooking oil at reduced prices to the poor.”