Egypt’s Deja Vu

Egypt’s revolution has come full circle. The tens of thousands who in 2011 flocked to Cairo’s now iconic Tahrir Square and swept away a military dictatorship are silent now. Egypt’s current president, former general Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, was once widely greeted as a hero whose military intervention saved the country from a polarizing interim government run by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Today, rights groups say, El-Sisi’s grip on power is as tight, or tighter than that of the authoritarian regime Egyptians overthrew seven years ago. Now, the only noise emanating from Tahrir Square is the bleat of car horns.

Egyptians are scheduled to vote in a presidential election March 26 through March 28. Government critics dismiss the exercise as a sham. El-Sisi is sure to win after all the credible opponents bowed out or were arrested. His only rival is a supporter who stepped in with minutes to spare before the deadline to register. Austerity measures have eroded the president’s popular support. The government is struggling to bring down what has been one of the region’s highest budget deficits. Billions of dollars in support from wealthy Gulf backers like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have helped. But Egypt was forced to lift currency controls in 2016 to seal a $12 billion International Monetary Fund loan, sending inflation soaring to a peak of more than 33 percent. While the rate has since eased to around half that, Egyptians still struggle with high prices and a dearth of jobs. At the same time, a sweeping crackdown on Islamists and other dissenters has silenced all but the bravest of critics. After El-Sisi and other officers ousted the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi from the presidency in 2013, security forces killed hundreds of Egyptians and jailed tens of thousands of others.