‘The real challenge for Egypt’

Apart from being highly speculative when it comes to possible regional developments, the article “Egypt’s challenges with Sisi at the helm” (The Jordan Times, June 16, 2014) also offered recommendations to the international community that I find rather challenging.

It is of course difficult to argue about the serious challenges that Egypt and President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi are facing. The new leadership obviously needs to handle a multitude of aspects, not the least economic ones.

But this is nothing new to Egypt, which has been witnessing mismanagement, corruption and a stagnating economy for decades.

There can be no doubt that the political elite and military establishment have played a major role over the years in bringing about the deterioration of the country’s finances by filling their pockets at the cost of increased poverty and inequality, which helped to spark the revolution in 2011 and the toppling of president Hosni Mubarak.

Recent estimates suggest that the military has further tightened its grip and now controls up to 60 per cent of the economy.

To believe that this very same establishment voluntarily would be able or willing to deliver economic reform is just a little bit more than naive.

Instead of addressing the immediate needs for economic and political reform, the new leadership is focusing entirely and indiscriminately on security.

I am not denying that there is a grave security situation that needs to be handled. But does anyone seriously believe that shutting down TV shows, silencing journalists, arbitrarily jailing political activists and issuing hundreds of death sentences will actually help Egypt back on track?

And is it really, as the author suggests, the international community’s obligation “to coordinate their efforts” with Egypt in this regard?

Of course not.

What Egypt needs, more than anything else, from its friends is support to heal the country, to build an inclusive society based on the rule of law and respect for human rights.

That is the real challenge for Egypt.

Jon Åstrom Gröndahl,
Amman