Egypt: Losing the people’s trust, Al Sisi is re-elected

When the Egyptian Election Authority announced the re-election of President Al Sisi last month on December 18, Egyptians and the international community were already certain of the outcome of Egypt’s election. It came as no surprise.

During Egypt’s presidential election campaigns where three candidates ran against the incumbent, President Abd el Fatah Al Sisi, the airwaves were saturated with the consequences for failure to vote. News reports revealed the rumblings of parliament, political figures, and influencers to penalize registered voters who chose not to vote.

The state was considering bringing criminal charges -- although a cumbersome, expensive, and lengthy process -- against non-voters once votes were counted. A sparse turnout for the incumbent at the polls would be unacceptable to the elites who count on manipulating fear onto the people to force voting for their continued presence. This time, the government highlighted a law enacted in 2014 (and amended in 2020) along with the intention to implement it to bring criminal charges against registered voters who did not vote.

While the re-elected president is still receiving recognition and congratulations from political leaders around the world, registered voters who did not vote escaped government targeting because Al Sisi won. This would have included a fine of up to 500 Egyptian pounds according to Article No. 57 of the 2014 Law No.45 known as “Exercise of Political Rights.”

As recent as 2020, this law was amended by Law No. 140 stating that “Failure to vote in the elections without an excuse requires the perpetrator to be punished with a fine not exceeding 500 pounds.” The state used this law to intimidate registered voters. Now, the state media is silent about their tactics as the election results favored Al Sisi.

It seems that Egyptians have the right to vote but not the right to abstain as the latter is viewed by the regime as a sign of protest without a permit. The fine for non-compliance (EP 100) was first written into law during the Nasser and Sadat era to avoid embarrassment before the world in case of little enthusiasm and support for the incumbent president. At that time, elections were yes and no referendums with only one name on the ballot. Last month, Egyptians viewed the current election as a referendum, seeing opposing candidates as mere decorative figures not meant to be taken seriously.

As with the former military era of those previous two presidents, President Al Sisi, a former military general and member of the Interim Military Council, managed in 2014 to pass through parliament the “Exercise of Political Rights,” a law against forfeiting one’s vote with the same purpose of his predecessors. For these elites, elections are used to seal the permanence of power, which only happens when sympathetic, participating Egyptians “freely” vote in “free and fair” elections as a demonstration to the world.

To maximize voter turnout in the weeks leading up to the polls last month, the government broadcasted reminders to registered voters of the financial penalty to potentially be applied per law against non-voters. The possibility of a fine for not voting was a credible threat to struggling Egyptians. Since all citizens automatically become registered when reaching the voting age, there is no way to avoid the fine´-or-the corresponding criminal charges should the state exact upon such a law.
How the law would be applied

Keeping with the concept of a democratically elected, representative government, the Egyptian constitution states that voting is the right and duty of all citizens. However, the weaponized Law No. 140 proceeding out of this rightful constitutional statement is unconstitutional and impractical to execute.

First, The Egyptian Elections Authority would have to issue reports against violators and send these reports to the public prosecutor whose office would notify each offender to pay a penalty. Once it’s imposed, the citizen would have no choice but to react by appealing their fine in court. Also, to avoid the fine, the same law allows Egyptians to give a valid excuse for not voting.

As the individual appeals are filed, the court must generate the date and time to hear each case, which would generate a very crowded calendar for the courts due to millions of non-voting protestors. The official Egyptian government newspaper reported that 22 million out of roughly 67 million registered Egyptians abstained from voting this time. Since other media reported a higher number, in fact, more than double that for non-voters, is the government covering up how bad it was?

Egyptians abandon the polls to gain a voice

A reasonable assumption is that Egyptians formed a silent boycott last month against the Al Sisi regime and did not simply ignore their civic duty and right to vote. Abandoning the vote was an unplanned, unpublished, and unprecedented event. It was a quiet rebellion against the powers-that-be. The sound of their silence is today more powerful than the loud and empty slogans of the president. United in spirit to overcome the vague and tiresome promises, Egyptians remained home alone in unison to whisper in one voice, “It’s time to step down.”

Egypt is facing a great setback
While Al Sisi begins his third term, the country is facing a great setback. This is clearly detectable within segments of the population. Egyptian society has become captive to sharp divisions and horrific contrasts. Most citizens are suffering from Al Sisi’s exclusionary and dictatorial visions with polarizations as never before.

These conflicts and divisions dominate the members of parliament as well, reaching a point without hesitation´-or-remorse to judge it permissible through lawmaking to violate the sanctity of those who differ in opinion´-or-belief. This includes penalizing the population with fines and criminal charges for civil disobedience.

All the while Egyptians are suffering the collapse of living conditions due to unemployment and inflation without any hope of restoring its balance. While we see the state withdraw from any positive role in society, we also see its responsibility for disparity between the general population on the one hand and a minority of powerful and privileged on the other hand, the latter enjoying life enriched by the former.

Al Sisi’s popularity is in its dying stage

In short, the government made threats of criminal penalties for not voting, offered illegal bribes as voting incentives, issued pre-election promises with “hopium” for Egyptian youths, and Reuters reported that numbers of Egyptian voters received payoffs´-or-threats to get them to go to the polls.

All these methods were insufficient to prevent the sharp decline in the number of voters for this presidential election in contrast to the public turnout of 2014.
Those who were coerced to the polls and included in the official vote totals were morally among the abstained voters. The number of free-will votes was a small subset.

Furthermore, recent analyzers emphasize that the poor turnout was also due to Al Sisi’s pre-election rhetoric. He used high profile problems facing the nation neglected by him during his term and leveraged them into the people’s fears of facing failure without his presence. Although he was re-elected, all of this backfired on him. Egyptians no longer trust Al Sisi.

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