The Autocrat-in-Training: The Sisi Regime at 10

It has been ten years since General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took over the Egyptian presidency. He has presided over an autocratic trial-and-error system of governance, putting personal whims and instincts above the interests of the Egyptian people. The president's state-led infrastructure projects-manifested in a raft of new cities and a new Suez Canal-driven economic growth in the initial stages, but cloaked deep-seated economic weaknesses. His military-based economic approach extended the role of the military in the economy, leading to an unstable autocracy that relies heavily on coercion and external support. Economic policies under Sisi have been characterized by heavy borrowing and austerity measures; the brunt of these has fallen on low- and middle-class citizens, entailing increased poverty and social discontent. Despite the attempts at economic reform, the rule of Sisi has retained features of personalist rule, including aversion to formal institutions and reliance on repression as an anti-opposition policy, in a precarious situation, economically and politically speaking, of Egypt.

A decade has passed since General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi assumed the Egyptian presidency a year after leading a military coup against Mohamed Morsi (2012–13), the elected president for whom the general had been serving as minister of defense. Sisi’s reign has been that of an autocrat-in-training who rules mostly by trial and error, as his knowledge and expertise rarely match his excessive confidence. He has based his priorities, strategies, and decision-making more on the combination of desire, fear, and gut instinct than on the needs of the Egyptian people and what's actually doable.

First years in the presidency - Sisi centered most of his attention on ensuring quick economic growth in Egypt. Egypt's economy struggled following the toppling of dictator Hosni Mubarak during the 2011 Egyptian revolution after thirty years at the reins of power. Sisi attempted to stimulate growth through state-led infrastructure projects: building the New Administrative Capital, dozens of new cities, a new Suez Canal, and a wide range of transportation infrastructure. These initiatives brought tremendous publicity and projected an image of modernity, thereby legitimizing Sisi’s personalist style of rule and bolstering his image as a national savior who was singlehandedly lifting Egypt out of despair and economic decline.

But these projects had more going for them than rapid growth and PR. Sisi had placed the Egyptian AF in charge of the projects, which therefore expanded an already very large role the military plays in the economy. A Sisi military-centered economic strategy spoke to his distrust of both the civilian bureaucracy and the private sector. The first is slow, inefficient, mired in obstructionism, compared to military institutions marked above all by an unhindered command-and-control style of management conducive to speedy implementation. In any case, the private sector was never a tempting partner for Sisi either-a product of the military establishment that long resented Mubarak's cozy partnership forged with big business in the name of economic liberalization. That partnership had animated the people’s anger in 2011, perhaps reinforcing Sisi’s reluctance to cultivate a business class of his own. Thus the military had to take the wheel.1

This strategy worked at first. The economy grew, unemployment fell, and budget deficits shrank—all signs that the economy was bouncing back and was safe for investors. But these impressive figures were masking inconvenient realities that would later haunt the regime. Much of this growth was due to state-led investments, few of which were creating secure jobs. While the government was telling donors it was working to promote the private sector, Sisi was doing just the opposite: crowding out private investments with military-led projects. The focus on expensive mega-projects 2 came at the expense of other urgent needs, including social spending.

But before long, this military-orchestrated approach took on a life of its own. The armed forces had been part and parcel of the civilian economy for decades, protected by tax exemptions, a free labor force of their own conscripts and unfettered access to land-and under Sisi, military economic empire-building took an extra leap. Besides construction projects, the AF began to get involved in commodities sectors, the production of cement, steel, phosphate, and fertilizer, as well as subsidized food-product trade.3 Before long, the economy became a mirror image of the military-dominated ruling coalition that came to power after 2013.

This was only part of the whole process of militarization, which intruded into each and every nook and corner of civic life. Uniformed gentlemen made their presence felt with utmost comfort in the economic realm but also in the media, arts, higher education, amongst other spheres of civic concern.