Egypt’s Sisi has The Popular Vote, Now He Needs Political Backing
Instead of taking months, the popular funding of the Suez Canal took only 8 days raising a total of 61 billion Egyptian pounds. This shows that despite the controversy around al-Sisi he has popular backing. He still needs political backing to achieve success. If he doesn’t have a parliament that echoes his ideals to the people future projects will most likely fail. His reduction of fuel subsidies was an important decision but is being used against him by political opponents.
Wave of Patriotism as Egypt 9 Billion for Suez Canal
Despite the hardships Egyptian citizens have endured in the last 4 years they have poured a collective 8.5 billion U.S. dollars into an upgrade of the Suez Canal, a long time symbol of national pride. Al-Sisi is planning to build a waterway parallel to the Suez Canal. Egyptians had the option to invest in the waterway by purchasing certificates with a guaranteed return. 82% of investments were from individuals instead of institutions and the canal is expected to bring in $2 to $5 billion dollars in revenue over the next two to three years.
al-Sisi’s Rise in Egypt
The unprecedented support for the Suez canal shows that many Egyptian are willing to move ahead despite some of the more draconian measures al-Sisi has enforced. It seems many Egyptians realize that their best hope for stability is accepting al-Sisi’s rule along with his canal expansion project which promises to revitalize Egypt’s economy and renew lost national pride. This reflects the larger issue of post-Mubarak Egypt in the global arena. Al-Sisi is doing a lot of good despite the continued imprisonment of protesters. Despite releasing some prisoners there is an estimated 200,000 still in prison. The global community has to do what the Egyptian people have done and accept that a truly free Egypt will not be realized for some time and accept that al-Sisi is doing some good and is the best hope for short term stability. Many of Egypt’s allies have already begun to praise al-Sisi for his work and Western powers generally prefer him over an Islamist ruler.
