A year ago, on July 3, 2013, we
witnessed the overthrow of Egypt's
first democratically-elected civilian president and the first president since
the January 25 revolution. The overthrow of Dr Mohamed Morsi came after just
one year of his presidential term in a coup led by his Minister of Defense,
Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi. It is timely to compare Morsi's one year in power with
Al-Sisi's one year in power. The past 12 months have encompassed many
unprecedented events, including a presidential campaign by Al-Sisi, who won an
election which has been widely viewed as farcical and illegitimate.
The presidential campaigns
Comparing the ideas and policies
of the coup leader, as a candidate for president upon whom many had pinned
their hopes to solve Egypt's
problems, with those of the deposed president, illustrates the enormous
differences in vision and outlook between the two men.
During his presidential campaign,
Al-Sisi was asked about some of the main issues facing Egyptians. Regarding the
reoccurring electricity shortages, Al-Sisi's big idea was that every citizen
should replace their light-bulbs into energy-saving bulbs and reduce their use
of electrical appliances. When Morsi was asked the same question during his
presidential campaign in 2012, which he titled the "Renaissance
Project", he said he intended to use nuclear power to fill this deficit.
Nuclear energy, he explained, would be used for electricity production. This
would also create a surplus of energy which could be exported, increasing Egypt's
national income.
Many Egyptians cannot even afford
to buy bread and queue to buy government-subsidized bread. Al-Sisi's answer to
this problem was that he would ask Egyptian families to sacrifice from the
amount they eat and save just one piece of bread. "If 25 million families
save a piece of bread by having three-quarters of a piece instead of a whole
slice, there would be 25 million pieces of bread for those that do not have
any," he argued.
Morsi, on the other hand, saw
that increasing the production of wheat was the way to solve this serious
problem; he suggested renting land in Sudan
or Ethiopia
for cultivation in order to save water. His plan was for Egypt to be
self-sufficient in wheat within four years.
Regarding the shortage of foreign
currency reserves (as a result of the dearth of tourists and foreign
investors), Al-Sisi suggested that every Egyptian living abroad should donate
$10 a month to Egypt.
Morsi's solution was to increase the fee for all foreign ships passing through
the Suez Canal.
With unemployment standing at
13.4 per cent of nearly 90 million Egyptians, Al-Sisi suggested buying a
thousand carts for the youth to sell vegetables. For Dr Morsi, unemployment
could be tackled by establishing micro-projects, such as assembling computers and
televisions, and larger-scale projects such as the Suez
Canal development project and other labor-intensive schemes. The Suez Canal project alone, according to Morsi, would not
only increase national income but also provide up to a million jobs.
When Al-Sisi was asked for his
position on the Camp David Treaty with Israel,
he said that he will safeguard the agreement and will co-ordinate with Israel to
protect the borders. When Dr Morsi was asked about his position, he stressed
that Egypt
is a country which maintains its international obligations providing other
parties also keep to their commitments; it is impossible for "five million
people anywhere to scare 90 million," he said.
The substantial disparity in
outlook and vision of both men is evident from their handling of these issues.
Whilst Al-Sisi seeks to administer a sticking-plaster to Egypt's
economic wounds, Morsi's vision sought to cure the problems at their core and
provide long-term solutions. "We have to produce our food, we have to
produce our medicines, and we have to produce our weapons," he insisted.
Al-Sisi's economic policy was hard to pinpoint during his presidential
campaign, because he did not have one.
Before they reigned
So who are the two men and what
was their life before entering Egyptian politics?
Mohammed Mohammed Morsi Issa
El-Ayaat was born in 1951; he obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees in
Engineering at Cairo University before going to the US to complete
a doctorate at Southern California University, which he completed in 1982.
After completing his education, Morsi lectured in two American universities
before returning to his homeland where he was appointed Professor and Dean of
the School of Engineering
in Al-Zaqaziq University.
Parallel to his academic career,
Morsi partook in political life through the Muslim Brotherhood where he became
the official parliamentary spokesman for the group after he won a parliamentary
seat in the 2000 elections. He was chosen universally as the best parliamentary
man for 2000-2005. In 2011, Morsi became the head of the Freedom and Justice
Party (FJP), the political arm of the Brotherhood, and was elected as a member
of the Egyptian parliament in 2012; he resigned from the movement and the FJP
after he won the presidential election in the same year.
Abdel Fatah Saeed Hussein Khaleel
Al-Sisi, born in 1954, served in the infantry following his graduation from the
Military Academy in 1977. He studied at the Wartime Military
College in the US in 2006, and was appointed Egypt's military attaché to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Despite not being involved
in any actual battles, Al-Sisi was promoted within the military and held
several important positions, including leadership of the infantry and the
Northern Command in Alexandria.
He was the head of intelligence warfare before he was selected by Morsi for the
position of defense minister. Al-Sisi was generally unknown to the public until
his appointment as a minister in August 2012.
Elections and popularity
Morsi's victory in the 2012
presidential election was a victory for the January 25 Revolution and for
democracy. The revolution was famous for the unity it created among the
Egyptian people, and his winning of five consecutive votes was an indication
that they were united in selecting who they wanted to lead them. This year's
elections came on the back of the bloody coup which has taken the lives of over
8,000 people and seen more than 44,000 men, women and children imprisoned for
their opposition to the military takeover and the annihilation of the
revolution.
Moreover, whilst the 2012
elections were open for participation by all, with thirteen presidential
candidates, the 2014 elections saw one puppet opponent for Al-Sisi. He won, of
course, in a stark reminder of the previous six decades of authoritarian rule,
with a landslide 96 per cent of the votes. Indeed, various pro-coup
anti-Brotherhood parties refused to celebrate the first anniversary of the 30
June "Revolution", such as the 6th April movement and the Salafi Noor
Party, in protest at the exclusion of parties from the 2014 elections and the
divisions that Egypt
has seen since that historic day last year.
Morsi grew in popularity when he
entered the public arena, appealing to Egyptians with his humble nature.
Following his election, President Morsi remained in his rented home and
insisted on a modest salary of $1,650 a month. He met with members of the
public frequently and prayed alongside them in the mosques. When he addressed
the people in Tahrir Square
following his victory, and whenever he mingled with the crowds, he refused to
have bodyguards as a barrier between him and his people. From the time that he
first appeared in the public eye, including his presidential campaign, Al-Sisi
has not made a single public appearance, fearing for his life despite his
supposed popularity with Egyptians,
Al-Sisi has limited himself to
carefully choreographed interviews and indoor meetings with handpicked groups.
He kept his election platform secret for most of the campaign on the grounds of
"national security". His supposed popularity was propelled and
fuelled by Egyptian state television alone, which compared him with former
Egyptian President Nasser and made a hero-savior cult-figure out of him. This
"Sisi-fever" continued despite the embarrassment that emanated from
the campaign and the military's allegedly "complete cure device" for
HIV and Hepatitis C. The media was quick to induce amnesia in his supporters
after these embarrassments by filling the screens with their demonstration of
opponents and magnifying their Egyptian Superman, Al-Sisi.
Achievements
The past 365 days under Al-Sisi
have seen the breakdown of many human rights in Egypt. The sanctity of human life
was squandered with 8,000 killed and 20,000 injured, with the media and even
some Islamic scholars belonging to the regime, advocating and encouraging such
bloodshed. Egypt
has also seen the abolition of freedoms and rights with 44,000 political
prisoners incarcerated in jails, including 48 journalists, and hundreds issued
with death sentences in recent months.
Since the coup, Egypt has seen
the closure of television channels and newspapers and the arrest of journalists
and students. The country is now among 48 countries worldwide that do not enjoy
any freedoms and, according to Freedom House, is regarded as a country which
lacks media freedom and freedom of expression; political participation;
civilian control and security-sector reform; peaceful assembly and civic
activism; and judicial independence and rule of law. Egypt is back to being a police
state and the military has full control over all state institutions.
During Morsi's time in office,
despite the 30 protests that occurred, there was not a single fatality. The law
prohibiting the arrest of those expressing opinions was cancelled and there was
no longer any such thing as political prisoners. The number of tourists
increased during Morsi's rule, with Egypt receiving almost seven
million tourists in the first half of 2013, injecting $5 million into the
economy. Following the coup and before the August massacres, tourism went down
by 30 per cent, and went down to zero following the bloodshed in Cairo. When Morsi became
president, foreign oil reserves had reached $14 million following the interim
post-revolution military rule; that figure went up to $18.8 million. Shortly
after the coup, oil reserves fell to 14.9 million; in one month alone, it fell
by $3.9 million.
Morsi met with many world
leaders, both at home and abroad. He attended the African Union summit where he
was welcomed with great respect and was seated on the front row. Two days after
the military coup in 2013 the Peace and Security Council of the African Union
suspended Egypt's
membership. It was readmitted reluctantly following Al-Sisi's presidential
"victory", although Sam Akaki, the Director of Democratic
Institutions for Poverty Reduction in Africa, has called for the withdrawal of this readmission, citing Al-Sisi's long list
of human right abuses. During the recent African Summit, Egypt's Al-Sisi
was seated in the third row.
History will be the judge
For Egyptians, the economy,
security and personal freedoms are the key issues of concern. The past year has
seen a culling of these freedoms, to a level never before seen in Egyptian
history.
With Egyptians now fasting the
holy month of Ramadan, many are facing severe difficulties in being able to
feed their family with the increased prices of food and the continuous
electricity cuts in Egypt's
harsh summer heat. Indeed, Ramadan entered Egypt forlornly this year, with new
laws and restrictions to dictate even the spiritual aspect of the people.
Hundreds of mosques are closed; ID cards are requested for entry into those
that are open; and the nightly Ramadan prayers (taraweeh) are cut short. State
television is doing its best to distract the people with 30 new drama series
this Ramadan, but will the Egyptian people wake from their intoxication and
look at what Egypt
has become, and then join the "opposition"? Time will tell.
President Morsi may not have been
perfect and he may have made mistakes, but it was unreasonable to expect the
country to get back on its feet in just one year after 60 years of
authoritarian rule. After reviewing the "achievements" of the past
year under Al-Sisi, can anyone honestly say they still support the coup?
Comparison
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