Not unexpectedly, on December 18, 2023, US-client Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi clinches victory in a controversial election. The Egyptian electoral officials of his regime announced his victory. He received 89.6 percent in the three-day elections between December 10 and 12 and is therefore set to rule the country until at least 2030.
Field Marshal Al-Sisi's opponent candidates got less than 5% votes. They were: Farid Zahran from the Egyptian Social Democratic Party (4.49 percent), Hazem Omar from the Republican People's Party (4.01 percent) and Abdel-Sanad Yamama from the New Wafd Party (1.86 percent). All the three came from parties that are in fact part of the regime.
Al-Sisi was appointed as Minister of Defense in August 2012 by the first democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi. He remained in office under the new government formed after the deposition of Morsi, and led by Hazem al-Beblawi. He was also appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Egypt. On 27 January 2014, he was promoted to the rank of field marshal.
Field Marshal Al-Sisi, who seized power with Western support almost ten years ago, on July 3, 2013, following mass protests against President Mohamed Morsi, leads one of the bloodiest terror regimes in the world. His rule began with a bloody massacre.
Since al-Sisi's military coup in 2013, Egypt has been ruled with an iron fist. Thousands of perceived critics have been arbitrarily jailed, often in horrendous conditions. The judiciary has been reduced to an obedient tool of the government's repression; and opposition, independent civil society, and free media have been nearly wiped out. This has made it virtually impossible for Egyptians to monitor, expose, and criticize their government's economic mismanagement, corruption, and human rights abuses. Al-Sisi has just secured a third six-year term in office, following a campaign of arrests, intimidation, and onerous requirements for candidates that effectively prevented any meaningful competition.
On December 6, 2023, the Human Rights Watch wrote a letter to the European Union officials saying: The Egyptian authorities continue to brutally suppress peaceful expressions of dissent. The 2013 anti-protest law has been used as a blanket ban on protests, resulting in tens of thousands being detained or prosecuted. Among them are prominent government critics, such as Alaa Abdel Fattah, Mohamed (Oxygen) Ibrahim, Salah Soltan, Hoda Abdel Moneim, and Nermin Hussein. Around 1700 political prisoners have been released since the presidential pardon committee was reactivated in April 2022; but around 4500 have been arrested or re-arrested over the same period of time, and those released are often hit by travel bans and assets freezes, showing how the government has no genuine intention to open up civic space.
The Human Rights Watch letter urged the EU to make it crystal clear, in any upcoming statement on the matter, that enhanced cooperation and the disbursement of funds are conditioned on clear steps to be undertaken by the government, including:
- Ending arbitrary arrests and abusive use of pretrial detention and releasing thousands of Egyptians held merely for peaceful exercise of their rights to free expression, association, or assembly;
- Halting widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment of detainees in prisons and detention facilities;
- Ensuring accountability for ongoing and past military and police abuses, including war crimes in North Sinai.
- The EU and EU member states should also condition any military cooperation with Egypt to serious and concrete steps to end impunity for the grave abuses committed by the Egyptian security forces.
Al-Sisi regime drastically revised or repealed legislation to curtain basic freedoms in recent years, including the 2015 counterterrorism law, the Terrorist Entities Law, the 2018 cybercrimes law and the 2013 protest law.
It may be pointed out that the death penalty is also used excessively under al-Sisi. In 2017 and 2018 alone, over 1,100 people were sentenced to death. At least 356 were executed in 2021. With the exception of China, this is the highest number of death sentences recorded by Amnesty International worldwide in 2021.
