Military Economics: Army Firms Flourish Under Sisi’s Rule in Egypt

CAIRO – In a four-decade military career, Osama Abdel Meguid served in the first Gulf War and was an assistant military attaché in the United States.

These days he issues orders from an office that overlooks the Nile, as chairman of the Maadi Co. for Engineering Industries, owned by the Ministry of Military Production.

Maadi was founded in 1954 to manufacture grenade launchers, pistols and machine guns. In recent years the firm, which employs 1,400 people, has begun turning out greenhouses, medical devices, power equipment and gyms. It has plans for four new factories.

“There are so many projects we are working on,” said Abdel Meguid, a 61-year-old engineer, listing orders including a 495 million Egyptian pound ($28 million) project for the Ministry of Electricity and an Algerian agricultural waste recycling contract worth $400,000.

Maadi is one of dozens of military-owned companies that have flourished since Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former armed forces chief, became president in 2014, a year after leading the military in ousting Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.

The military owns 51 percent of a firm that is developing a new $45 billion capital city 75 km east of Cairo. Another military-owned company is building Egypt’s biggest cement plant. Other business interests range from fish farms to holiday resorts.

In interviews conducted over the course of a year, the chairmen of nine military-owned firms described how their businesses are expanding and discussed their plans for future growth. Figures from the Ministry of Military Production – one of three main bodies that oversee military firms – show that revenues at its firms are rising sharply. The ministry’s figures and the chairmen’s accounts give rare insight into the way the military is growing in economic influence.
“It would take the private sector three to four years to complete the executive procedures to do something this big, such as roads and water projects, and to this standard.”
Some Egyptian businessmen and foreign investors say they are unsettled by the military’s push into civilian activities and complain about tax and other advantages granted to military-owned firms. The International Monetary Fund warned in Sept. 2017 that private sector development and job creation “might be hindered by involvement of entities under the Ministry of Defense.”

Egypt’s government counters that private companies are operating on an even playing field and that the military is filling gaps in the market, as it did during a shortage of infant formula in 2016. Then the military helped by importing supplies and has since announced plans to build a formula plant. Sisi says the military can deliver large, complicated projects faster than the private sector.

In 2016, the military and other security institutions were given exemptions in a new value-added tax (VAT) law enacted as part of IMF-inspired reforms. The law states that the military does not have to pay VAT on goods, equipment, machinery, services and raw materials needed for the purposes of armament, defense and national security.

The Ministry of Defense has the right to decide which goods and services qualify. Civilian businessmen complain that this can leave the system open to abuse. Receipts for a cup of coffee at private sector hotels, for example, add 14 percent VAT. Receipts at military hotels do not. Employees at the military-owned Al-Masah Hotel in Cairo told Reuters that no VAT was charged when renting venues for weddings and conferences.
FROM GUNS TO GREENHOUSES

Military commercial ventures fall under one of three main bodies – the Ministry of Military Production, which oversees 20 businesses, the Ministry of Defense, which controls dozens, and the Egyptian government-owned Arab Organization for Industrialization, which has responsibility for at least 12.
Estimates vary on the scale of the military’s role in the economy. Sisi said in Dec. 2016 the military accounts for up to two percent of output. “It has been said that the military’s economy is worth 20 or even 50 percent of the economy. I wish,” he said at the opening of a military facility to produce chlorine for water sanitation.

A leading political scientist, who asked not to be named, put the figure at about three percent of GDP. The World Bank estimated Egypt’s GDP at $336 billion in 2016.

President Gamal Abdel Nasser established the Ministry of Military Production in 1954 to help Egypt achieve self sufficiency in arms production. In the decades that followed, its fortunes were mixed. It was abolished by Nasser, only to be revived by President Anwar Sadat in 1971, according to a 1985 CIA report. Revenues from its firms declined in much of the 1990s and 2000s. When Sisi took power the picture changed again.

The Ministry of Military Production is projecting that operating revenues from its 20 firms will reach 15 billion Egyptian pounds in 2018/2019, five times higher than in 2013/2014, according to a ministry chart. The ministry does not disclose what happens to the revenues. The chairmen of two of the firms said profits go to the ministry or are reinvested in the business.

The chairman of one firm that falls under the Ministry of Military Production, Major General Mammdouh Badawy, recalled with distaste the days of economic liberalization under President Hosni Mubarak in the 1990s and mid 2000s when “businessmen were eating up the country.” Badawy’s enterprise, Heliopolis Co. for Chemical Industries, was set up in 1949 to produce hand grenades, mortars, fuses and chemicals. These days it has ambitions to become Egypt’s number one supplier of paint.
In 2017 Heliopolis teamed up with another Egyptian paint maker, Pachin, which is majority owned by the state. The two firms plan to work together to compete with the paint market leader, Norway’s Jotun, Badawy said. Over time, Heliopolis aims to increase the share of paint production it sends to the private sector to 80 percent of its output from 20 percent now, he added.

“Pachin and I can compete with Jotun, but I can’t compete with Jotun alone,” said Badawy, a man of military bearing and with a greying moustache. “I don’t want to be a local shop. I want to be a company that has the capacity to export and compete internationally.”

Jotun said in a statement it hadn’t seen “any influence on our business up to now.” Its products were aimed at the top end of the market, it added, while Pachin tended to target middle and budget buyers.

The chairmen of two military engineering companies, Abu Zaabal Engineering Industries Co and Helwan Engineering Industries Co, said in recent years it had become much easier to access financing through the Ministry of Military Production.

In 2015 the government appointed Major General Mohamed El Assar to run the ministry. Assar was a member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that ruled Egypt after a popular uprising toppled Mubarak in Feb. 2011.

Abu Zaabal chairman, Major General Magdy Shawky Abdel Moneim, said his firm used to have to borrow from the banks. “We had to wait for our turn at the bank to get the money we needed. But now, as soon as I submit a request to the ministry and say I need 60 million or 40 million Egyptian pounds to buy such and such raw materials to manufacture such and such, the following day Major General Assar approves the request.”
Founded in 1974 to make artillery for the armed forces, Abu Zaabal now produces a wide range of specialty steels.

Helwan was established in 1954 to make metal components for heavy ammunition. In the 1980s it began making cooking pots, cutlery, fire extinguishers and gas canisters. Its chairman, Major General Shokry Al-Qamary, said sales of kitchen utensils were booming since Egypt devalued its currency in 2016, pushing up the price of imported goods. “We can’t keep up with demand.”

One of the most visible symbols of the military’s commercial ambitions is in the city of Beni Suef, at the edge of the desert south of Cairo, where workers are putting the finishing touches to Egypt’s largest cement plant, owned by the military’s El Arish Cement Co. The cement industry is feeling the full force of the military’s expanding activities. It took 8,000 workers 18 months to build the $1 billion dollar plant. At full capacity, it will produce 12.6 million tons of cement a year.

An executive at a foreign-owned cement company said Egypt’s annual production capacity already stood at 79 million tons last year, far above consumption of 52 million. An official at an Egyptian company said his firm’s sales had dropped by a fifth since January because of the new plant.

Egypt’s majority state-owned National Cement Co. shut production in Nov. 2017 after suffering heavy losses in the second half. Suez Cement, majority owned by Germany’s Heidelberg, reported that its consolidated 2017 loss nearly doubled to 1.14 billion pounds, while Alexandria Cement, majority owned by Greece’s Titan, reported its consolidated loss rose tenfold to 513.9 million pounds.

The military did not respond to a request for comment about the cement market. It has said previously that housing and other major construction projects will create new demand for cement. In addition to the new capital, the military is involved in the development of two new cities – New Alamein on the Mediterranean coast and Gabal Galala in the mountains above the northern Red Sea.

The executive at a foreign-owned firm disagreed with the military’s demand projection. To absorb all the new capacity Egypt, already one of the world’s highest per capita cement consumers, would have to double its consumption, the executive said.

Among projects the Ministry of Military Production announced in 2017 was a plan to plant 20 million palm trees with an Emirati company and build a factory to make sugar from their dates. It agreed with a Saudi company to jointly manufacture elevators. The military inaugurated the Middle East’s biggest fish farm on the Nile Delta east of Alexandria.
The Ministry of Military Production signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s GCL Group last to build a solar panel factory worth up to $2 billion. The military has taken over much of the construction of intercity roads from the Ministry of Transport and now controls the toll stations along most major highways.

“IT IS COMPETITION”

Egypt’s economy has been struggling ever since the popular uprising that toppled Mubarak in 2011. Political instability and Islamist violence have damaged Egypt’s crucial tourism industry.

Economists and investors say reforms tied to a $12 billion three-year IMF program signed in Nov. 2016 should lay the ground for economic expansion. But foreign investors are still shying away from Egypt, apart from those focusing on the more resilient energy sector. Non-oil foreign direct investment fell to about $3 billion in 2017 from $4.7 billion in 2016, according to Reuters calculations based on central bank statistics.

A commercial officer at a Western embassy said foreign investors were reluctant to invest in sectors where the military is expanding or in one they might enter, worried that competing against the military with its special privileges could expose their investment to risk. If an investor had a business dispute with the military, the commercial officer said, there was no point in taking it to arbitration. “You just leave the country,” he said.

Other economists, however, are less troubled by the military’s expanding role.

“The government is simply securing its interest in strategic sectors, and the way it’s done is far from the mandatory partnerships or nationalizations of the 1960s. The government is determined to have private sector-led growth,” said Hany Farahat, senior economist at Egyptian investment bank CI Capital.

Minister of Military Production Minister Assar told Reuters Egypt needs private companies, which he considers “the backbone of our industry and economy.” But he believes his ministry also has a place. “It is competition.”
Sisi, speaking at a Feb. 8 inauguration of 1,300 greenhouses built by military engineers, said the armed forces were invaluable for the economy.

“I will tell you simply, as you have seen, it would take the private sector three to four years to complete the executive procedures to do something this big, such as roads and water projects, and to this standard.”

Egypt’s military, the biggest in the Arab world, has advantages.

It enjoys financial support from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, staunch supporters of Sisi since he toppled the group they see as a threat to the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood. Western powers see Cairo as a bulwark against Islamist militancy. Egypt receives $1.3 billion in military aid annually from the United States alone.

In addition to the law exempting the military from value added tax, some of Egypt’s other laws also work to the military’s advantage.

In 2015, the defense minister issued a decree exempting nearly 600 hotels, resorts and other properties owned by the military from real estate taxes.

Military companies receive an exemption from import tariffs under a 1986 law and from income taxes under a 2005 law. Cargoes sent to military companies do not have to be inspected.

It’s not just the military’s big ventures that are making some private sector companies uneasy. The Military Production Company for Projects, Engineering Investments and General Supplies grew out of a team of five employees in a small office in the Ministry of Military Production back in 2012. A ministry decree established the company in 2015. There are now 70 staff working in its new headquarters in the Nasr City area in northern Cairo, home to many military officers.

The company is striking deals with the ministries of education and youth and is involved in sewage and irrigation projects. It built a swimming pool for a leading sports club, is developing railways, constructed more than 60 schools and has built offices for organizations connected to Al Azhar, Egypt’s top religious institution.

“The ministries deal with us because they trust the armed forces. We will deliver on time, prices are not exaggerated and quality is high,” said company chairman Maged El Serty, who aims to build concrete and asphalt mixing plants to aid expansion.

At bustling Cairo squares, people line up to buy subsidized meat and other food handed out from trucks sponsored by the military. Sisi said he had instructed the military to enter the market “to supply more chicken to push down prices.”

Some disagree with such measures on the grounds the military’s mission is to protect the country from external threats.

“We have reached a point where they are competing even with street vendors,” said Hazem Hosny, a political scientist and economist at Cairo University and spokesman for retired general Sami Anan, who briefly sought to compete in Egypt’s 2018 presidential election.

“I believe that any military officer who respects himself will be upset from seeing even one soldier standing on the street selling chicken legs.”
Largest Army in Africa
With around 2 million personnel, including 500,000 in the army, the Egyptian military is the biggest in Africa, and one of the largest in the world. Arguably far more striking than the extent of its physical muscle, however, is the size of economic muscle. Its spokespeople consistently try to play down its role in Egypt’s economy, claiming the military is responsible for just 1% of the country’s GDP, but analysts tend to believe the military controls between 5 and 40% of the economy, with most leaning towards the higher end of that spectrum.

Exact figures are hard to come by. The military’s budget is kept confidential and its business dealings are typically untaxed and unaudited on apparent grounds of national security. It is known, however, that military is involved in countless different businesses in countless different industries. Military-owned companies engage in ventures from cement to shipbuilding, from fertiliser to fridges, and from tourism to televisions. The Egyptian army owns hospitals and child-care centres, it is a huge player in the country’s agricultural sector, and it has various contracts with foreign investors worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The military also owns vast tracts of land. In 1997, a presidential decree awarded the army the right to manage all of Egypt’s unused land. According to some estimates, that essentially gives the military de facto control of 87% of the entire country’s land mass.

When Mohamed Morsi came to power in June 2012, it was the first time for half a century that the reins of power were not in the hands of a military man. The army was forced to take a step back politically, but economically little changed. In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood-led government quickly recognised that taking on the military’s entrenched economic interests would be difficult and dangerous, and therefore decided to develop parallel institutions instead.

Despite taking care not to step on the military’s very large toes, however, some believe Morsi’s plans to develop the hugely lucrative Suez Canal with help from Qatar alarmed the army, which was not involved in the deal, and arguably contributed to Morsi’s army-backed overthrow in July 2013.

Mega-military

Since the military’s return to the top political table in July 2013, it seems to have accelerated its economic activities and intensified its hold on the country. 19 of the 25 provincial governors appointed after Morsi’s removal were generals, several figures who were supportive of the military under Hosni Mubarak were returned to important economic positions.

With this newfound authority, Egypt’s generals have been making up for lost time. They are moulding the economy to develop along lines of their choosing and have taken the opportunity not just to entrench their business activities even further, but upscale and expand them.

One area of particular interest has been huge infrastructure projects. Since Morsi’s overthrow, the military has been awarded contracts for the construction of tens of thousands of housing units and apartments, dozens of roads, railways, bridges and tunnels, and scores of health centres, schools and other buildings. These projects are believed to be worth billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, the defence ministry signed a deal which will see them develop an exclusive, high-end complex in Uptown Cairo, which will be filled with expensive housing, international luxury stores and a golf course.
And recently, it was announced that the UAE firm Arabtec Holding had agreed a project with the Egyptian army to build one million low-income housing units across 13 sites in the country. This deal is reportedly worth an enormous $40bn. It has not been revealed where the financing for the construction will come from, but it is understood that the land − which, as in many of the other mega-projects, is owned by the military − will be given for free.

BUILDING NEW CITY

Egypt’s new administrative capital, currently under construction—and tentatively named Wedian, which means “desert valleys”— represents concretely where President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been trying to take his country during his years of authoritarian rule. Built and run primarily by the military, it is to be a sleek, contemporary “smart city” of government institutions and apartment blocks, located some 28 miles into the desert east of the heavily populated thousand-year-old metropolis of Cairo. Wedian’s echoing emptiness also symbolizes the fact that most Egyptian citizens have no place in Sisi’s vision—it is an equivalent of Baghdad’s Green Zone, where he will rule indefinitely behind a security cordon, shielded from the demands of the country’s 97 million inhabitants.

The fact that Wedian will be a controlled-access city serves as a metaphor for Sisi’s most impressive achievement, if it can be called that: rebuilding the wall of fear separating citizens from the state. In Egypt’s 2011 uprising, the fear barrier constructed during the eras of presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and Hosni Mubarak was breached, bringing joy to the hearts of youthful revolutionaries and alarm to those of senior military officers. Demonstrators burned down the ruling party headquarters building in January 2011 and ransacked state security offices in early March of that year; the presidential palace, the interior ministry, and the supreme court were sites of frequent protests in Cairo. Egyptians also tried, with mixed success, to dismantle less tangible structures of authoritarianism such as the emergency law in effect almost continuously during Mubarak’s 30 years in power.

GATEKEEPERS OF THE ECONOMY

When it comes to Wedian, the military is leaving little to chance. “The army will be in the command and control center and will manage and control the whole city via the center,” retired Brigadier General Khaled el-Husseiny Soliman told NBC News in August 2018.

Soliman serves as the spokesman for the organization overseeing the new capital’s construction, in which the military has a controlling interest along with the housing ministry. This cozy arrangement encapsulates Sisi’s second major “achievement” in five years: reorienting Egypt’s economy as well as the polity to serve the interests of its army.

While the military has had substantial revenue- generating operations for decades—since it stopped fighting regional wars and turned into a jobs program and profit center—under Sisi its economic activities have reached a new level. A series of legal changes has made it easier than ever for military companies, or so-called private companies headed by current or retired military officers, to be awarded most government contracts. The ministries of military production and defense, along with the military-owned Arab Organization for Industrialization, oversee dozens of companies that produce everything from weapons to toll roads to appliances and food for the commercial market. Exempt from taxes (including the valueadded tax enacted in 2016 as part of reforms required by the International Monetary Fund in exchange for a $12 billion loan), enjoying free access to conscript labor and vast tracts of state-owned land, and benefiting from a massive network of officers who can thread through the country’s legendary bureaucracy, military companies boast that they can get things done more efficiently than the private sector.

The military’s actual share in the economy is impossible to determine, but high-ranking officers often are not shy about their mushrooming role. A representative of the ministry of military production told Reuters in May 2018 that revenues for the 20 firms under the ministry’s control would reach 15 billion Egyptian pounds (around $840 million) in 2018–19, five times greater than in 2013–14.

Any civilian discussion of the military’s economic reach or of government mismanagement can bring down the regime’s wrath. The economist Abdel-Khaleq Farouq was arrested in October 2018 (and later released on bail) on a charge of “spreading false information.” The accusation stemmed from his recent book, Is Egypt Really a Poor Country?, which alleges that the policies of military-controlled governments have kept wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. Farouq’s publisher was also arrested and then released.

NO PLACE FOR POLITICS

While the new capital for now is mostly a construction zone, one memorable scene has taken place there already: Sisi’s appearance at the January 2018 Orthodox Christmas Mass celebrated by Pope Tawadros at the new Coptic cathedral. The photos of the event must have been carefully edited to avoid showing that the church was still largely unbuilt at the time. While it might have been far more comfortable for Copts to spend that chilly Christmas Eve in their fully enclosed main cathedral in Cairo, they were compelled to troop out to the construction site so that Sisi could keep a promise made a year earlier. News outlets in Egypt and around the world duly carried the photos of Sisi and Tawadros in the new cathedral, illustrating a story of great public-relations value to the president, particularly in the United States and Europe.

Some Copts told media outlets that they were happy to have the new cathedral, but they worried that the constant touting of it as “the largest in the Middle East” would make it a target for terrorists (who have carried out a series of attacks on Christian holy sites and pilgrims in Egypt, most recently this November). Unfortunately, Christians as well as the country’s official Muslim religious establishment have been Sisi’s hostages since the fateful day of July 3, 2013, when the Coptic pope and the sheikh of al-Azhar were seated with military officers flanking Sisi as he announced the coup that deposed Morsi.

Foreign diplomats are another group being pressed to move to the new capital. Many missions have been reluctant to commit to leasing what will be expensive real estate for their offices and housing, choosing to wait and see or commit only to a token presence. As is typical under Sisi, when persistent urging has not brought the desired results the regime turns quickly to coercion: officials reportedly have hinted darkly to foreign missions that their safety cannot be guaranteed if they choose to remain in Cairo. Such treatment is characteristic of the Sisi regime’s bullying approach to diplomacy. Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry has not been above threatening that Egypt could unleash a flood of migrants across the Mediterranean should European leaders not support Sisi.

Another feature of Sisi’s Egypt is that there is no place for politics. Not only was the Muslim Brotherhood declared a terrorist organization and its political party outlawed, but even the secular parties that tried to stay on Sisi’s good side—the Free Egyptians, al-Dustour (Constitution), even the venerable Wafd (Delegation), and many others— have been compromised. Egyptian intelligence has fomented leadership splits, financial problems, sex scandals, and other maladies to ensure that not a single independent political party or prominent leader is left standing. The five men (three of them military officers) who tried to challenge Sisi for the presidency as he campaigned for reelection in 2018 were systematically pounded down: two were imprisoned, one put under house arrest, and the other two intimidated into withdrawing.

Also largely missing in action, by contrast to the pre-2013 period, are young people. Those under 30 make up 60 percent of Egypt’s population, but they are greatly underrepresented in the labor force (with at least 30 percent unemployed, a figure that rises to 40 percent for those with university degrees) as well as in public life.

After paying lip service to the January 2011 youth-led revolution during his initial period in power, Sisi made his intention to block any future mass demonstrations plain in a January 2018 speech that went viral on social media: “What happened seven or eight years ago in Egypt will never happen again . . . no, it seems you don’t know me well enough.” Gone at least for now is the April 6 Youth Movement, a force in youth mobilization since the mid-2000s that was declared a terrorist group after the coup. Even Tamarod (Rebellion), an anti-Brotherhood youth group that worked with the military, was pushed aside unceremoniously after it had served its purpose of building public support for the coup.

Most of the well-known young activists, bloggers, and satirists who captured the public imagination from the late 2000s until 2013 have paid the heavy price of imprisonment or exile. Now, youth may only speak when spoken to—by Sisi, in carefully orchestrated, invitation-only forums held by the president at the beach resort of Sharm El Sheikh.

HAUNTING PROBLEMS

Such are Sisi’s accomplishments: rebuilding the wall of public fear, reorienting the economy to serve the interests of the military, compelling religious leaders to go along with him, and crushing political and civic dissent. While he is far from beloved internationally, Sisi can claim credit for maintaining traditional alliances with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Europe while building closer relations with Russia, China, and Israel. He is far from resolving a critical water dispute with Ethiopia and Sudan over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which Ethiopia is building upstream on the Blue Nile, but he has worked at improving ties with various African nations to strengthen Egypt’s hand against Ethiopia.

Building Sisi’s dream city, however, has diverted his regime’s energies from other problems that might well come back to haunt him, including dwindling fresh water supplies as well as rapid population growth and a chronic inability to attract the investment needed to generate enough jobs. Egyptian women have an average of 3.5 children each, nearly double the replacement rate, erasing decades of progress in reducing fertility that began reversing around 2008, for reasons including a shift of government and foreign donor funds to other priorities. That rate of population growth means the economy must generate at least 700,000 new jobs a year, far beyond its capacity. It also means Egypt is headed for a water crisis unless it cleans up its wasteful usage practices (especially in irrigation), whether or not Ethiopia completes its dam.

So far Sisi has pleased the IMF by cutting energy subsidies and introducing the value-added tax, but over the long run he will need to attract investment by foreigners as well as Egyptians into productive sectors that employ large numbers of workers. Tourism is slowly coming back after being damaged by terrorist attacks, but remains fragile; the ISIS-linked insurgency might well flare up again. Natural gas production in the Mediterranean is growing quickly and can help relieve the government budget, but employs relatively few.

Foreign direct investment fell in 2017 compared with the previous year, then recovered somewhat in 2018—but is by no means soaring, even with Chinese companies taking significant stakes in Wedian. The tepid interest in investing in Egypt, whether among local businesspeople or foreigners, is rooted in several general problems and one specific one. As Egypt’s relatively low rating in the World Bank’s annual “Doing Business” report shows, the lack of transparent practices for enforcing contracts, customs, and taxation remains a major problem and is in fact worse now than it was under Mubarak.

Moreover, the military’s proliferating involvement in many sectors is a disincentive for foreign as well as local investors; who wants to compete on a tilted playing field? While Egyptian businesspeople generally supported the coup, expecting a government like Mubarak’s (under whom they thrived), they have become increasingly critical in private about the military’s rapid spread into new sectors, as well as its rapaciousness. The major deal to emerge from an October 2018 visit by an American business delegation was a memorandum of understanding signed by the military’s Arab Organization for Industrialization and The Armored Group to manufacture vehicles.

THE SAND CASTLE

Sisi’s next big political project, according to persistent reports, will be to oversee amendments to the constitution to remove term limits (which were imposed to meet a principal demand of the public after Mubarak held on to power for 30 years) so that he may remain in office beyond 2022. Approval will be easy to obtain from the tame parliament elected in 2015, and while public participation in the necessary referendum might well be sparse, Sisi has grown accustomed to doing without the shows of mass enthusiasm he once could command.

And so it might be that by 2020 or thereabouts, Sisi will ensconce himself in his new gated Green Zone, surrounded by just enough military officers, civil servants, and foreign diplomats to create a faint hum of traffic, but far enough from the jostle and bustle of Cairo that he need never worry about another angry crowd protesting outside the presidential palace. He might even be able to sleep several nights in the same location without worry, dispensing with his current security precautions. Certainly, the type of popular uprising that took place in 2011, with thousands gathering in front of government buildings to demand change, would be difficult to imagine taking place in the new capital. Then again, Egypt’s restless and resourceful youth, aggrieved Islamists, embittered businessmen, and ambitious military officers—working separately or together—might yet find ways to pull down Sisi’s castle of sand.
Source: Daily News Egypt, Reuters, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace