Egypt’s rushed election shows Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi is nervous
It will be easy for him to win a third term. Seeing it out may be harder
POLITICIANS campaign in poetry, as the saying goes, even if they govern in prose. Rarely do they write verses about suffering. Last month Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt’s military dictator, tried out a bleak slogan for his upcoming election. “If the price of the nation’s progress and prosperity is hunger and thirst, then let us not eat or drink,” he said. With food prices up 72% over the past year, many voters are doing just that: dulce et decorum est, indeed.
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This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Deaf on the Nile”
From the October 7th 2023 edition
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