CAIRO: The sole candidate running against Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi has had two showcase campaign rallies in downtown Cairo. The first was a disaster. No one showed up except a few campaign workers.
The second, on March 11, was a slight improvement: 30 people attended. They held banners and chanted slogans, though the chants weren’t exactly resounding victory cries for their candidate, an almost unknown politician named Moussa Mustafa Moussa.
“Whether Moussa wins or el-Sisi wins, either is our president!” they shouted.
There is no question the general-turned-president el-Sisi will win a second four-year term. But the March 26-28 election will likely be remembered as the event that signaled Egypt’s break with the little pretense it had left of democratic rule, seven years after a popular uprising toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in the name of democracy.
The election was preceded by a purge of would-be opposing candidates that was unprecedented even in comparison to Mubarak’s nearly 30-year rule. Authorities also clamped down on the media, even egging the public to report to the police anyone they feel is depicting the country in a bad light.
The question raised by many observers is why such extreme measures were taken to ensure a vote that el-Sisi would probably win anyway. El-Sisi seems convinced that a genuinely contested election could destabilize the country, allow his Islamist foes a back door into politics or interfere with his high-octane, single-handed drive to revive the battered economy.
El-Sisi was first elected in a 2014 landslide, riding on popularity after, as army chief, he led the military’s ouster of Islamist President Muhammad Mursi. He kept much of that popularity while ferociously cracking down on Islamists and secular dissenters.
He has insisted stability must take priority over freedoms as he carried out multiple, large-scale infrastructure projects and implemented painful austerity reforms. With those reforms, el-Sisi has succeeded in bringing some life back to the economy, though at the cost of inflation that has badly hurt many in the impoverished population. El-Sisi has also made a name for himself on the international stage as a champion against Islamic militancy.
After the election, el-Sisi and his supporters will very likely try to get rid of the constitution’s two term limit on the presidency, said Paul Salem, a senior Middle East expert from the Washington-based Middle East Institute.
“It might be the view of el-Sisi and his administration that this is needed for stability for economic and security reasons,” Salem told The Associated Press.
“My own personal view is that this buys stability for the short term but makes any transfer of power which has to happen sooner or later much more difficult,” Salem added.
Moussa, an ardent el-Sisi supporter, entered the race at the last minute to prevent the embarrassment of a one-candidate election. An extremely polite contestant, he has avoided sounding eager to win, never criticizes el-Sisi and in fact often praises him.
El-Sisi hasn’t bothered to campaign in person. Instead, the streets of Cairo and other cities have been swamped in a tidal wave of billboards, banners and posters with his image declaring: “He is the hope.”
A decent turnout is the one thing left to give the vote a measure of respectability. El-Sisi’s supporters have organized rallies urging the public to vote. Pro-government media proclaim that voting is a religious duty and failing to do so is “high treason.” Moussa’s supporters chanted at his rally that would-be boycotters are traitors and cowards.
In a speech Monday, el-Sisi urged everyone to vote, “whatever your political choices and opinions.” Laughing, he told the crowd, “I love you, go out and vote.”
Imad Hussein, the pro-el-Sisi editor of Al-Shorouk newspaper, criticized the handling of the election, not because the field of candidates was engineered but because it wasn’t done smoothly.
“We, of course, hoped to have a genuinely contested election,” he wrote last month. “But since we don’t have that, the government was supposed to at least prepare the stage to make it look democratic.”
The methodical elimination of opponents suggested el-Sisi felt a vulnerability — particularly to a candidate rooted in the military who could exploit possible cracks in his popularity, whether over pain from economic reforms, resentment over crackdowns or frustration over continued militant violence.
Several candidates dropped out, citing intimidation and harassment. But the harshest treatment was dealt out to two former generals: former military chief of staff Maj. Gen. Sami Annan and former air force general Ahmed Shafiq.
The candidacy of Annan “would have created a conflict that would impact on the ‘holy’ unity of the armed forces and push into the open files that can only remain secret,” analyst Abdel-Azeem Hamad wrote in a Feb. 22 column. Annan was the second-highest figure in the military’s supreme council that ruled Egypt for more than a year after Mubarak’s fall.
The 70-year-old Annan was an unquestioned member of the “deep state,” ensuring the military, police and other key institutions would not oppose his presidency, one of his top campaign aides, Hisham Genena, said in an interview last month.
“This blend of civilians and military men caused the regime to panic,” he said, alluding to Annan’s choice of him and a left-wing university professor as his top aides.
Annan struck a progressive tone in his short-lived candidacy. In a January video announcing his run, he lamented encroachments on freedoms and Egyptians’ suffering under el-Sisi’s economic reforms, and he called on the military to remain neutral in the voting.
Over the next three days, top military brass — including Egypt’s former military ruler, Field Marshal Mohammed Tantawi — tried to dissuade Annan from running, Genena said.
Annan brushed them off. Finally, authorities moved: on Jan. 23, he was grabbed from his car by masked men on a Cairo highway.
He has been detained ever since at a military prison, facing charges of incitement against the military, forgery and failing to secure clearance from the military to run for president.
Senior security officials said Annan had been under surveillance for months and was directly advised not to run, to maintain the military’s image as united without rival loyalties.
“He was fully aware of the consequences that awaited him ... The warnings were crystal clear,” said one of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
As he went to file an appeal against Annan’s arrest, Genena was beaten up by thugs his lawyers contend were sent by the police. Genena was later arrested after he claimed in a TV interview that Annan had documents incriminating Egypt’s leadership.
Annan is now under pressure to accept house arrest and silence in exchange for the dropping of all charges, according to a person with first-hand knowledge of the case. So far he has refused, but “they are bringing up all sorts of allegations” to push him into it, said the person, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for the same reason as the security officials.
In the case of Shafiq, authorities were likely worried not just by his military credentials. Mubarak’s last prime minister, Shafiq ran in the 2012 presidential elections, seen as Egypt’s freest vote, finishing a close second to Mursi.
Shafiq lived in the United Arab Emirates since that election.
He announced his intention to run again in a Nov. 29 video. The Emiratis, close allies of el-Sisi, promptly arrested him and deported him to Egypt. At Cairo’s airport, he was whisked away by security agents, interrogated and confined under guard at a hotel, his phone confiscated, the security officials said.
Over the next days, senior security officials pressed him to drop out of the race, according to the officials. Pro-government media launched a high-intensity campaign to discredit him, threatening that past corruption cases against him would be revived and hinting at exposure of alleged sexual indiscretions.
Shafiq buckled, announcing his withdrawal on Jan. 7. He has not been seen since — effectively under house arrest, the officials said.
Annan and Shafiq posed particular problems for el-Sisi. They would have offered safe bets for voters seeking change but wary of parting company with the military, which many Egyptians still respect as a protector of stability and which produced all but two of Egypt’s presidents since the dawn of the republic in the 1950s.
But more worrisome, the tumultuous events of recent weeks fueled speculation about possible fissures within the military, which prides itself on iron-clad unity and secrecy.
It is not known whether Annan or Shafiq’s challenges to el-Sisi had any support among senior officers. But other developments have also raised question marks, such as unexplained dismissals in past months of the military’s chief of staff and the head of the General Intelligence Directorate, Egypt’s version of the CIA, who also hails from the military.
Government-controlled media have briefly mentioned conflicts among security and intelligence agencies, which are traditionally headed by men of military background, and there have been unconfirmed reports of top generals being quietly sidelined.
Further fueling speculation, el-Sisi in a recent speech angrily lashed out at unspecified opponents. “By God, the price of Egypt’s stability and security is my life and the life of the army,” he warned, directing an intense gaze at Defense Minister Sidki Sobhi, seated to his left. “I am not a politician who just talks,” he added.
Michael W. Hanna, an Egypt expert from New York’s Century Foundation, believes el-Sisi’s fury was chiefly directed at rivals inside the military.
“The regime is super sensitive,” he said, “but it may also be facing internal tensions and rivalries that are seeping out into the public domain.”
In Egypt election, El-Sisi imposes stability over democracy
In Egypt election, El-Sisi imposes stability over democracy
Syria monitor says 35 people summarily executed in three days
- Most of those executed are former officers in the toppled Assad government who had presented themselves in centers set up by the new authorities, according to the Britain-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria
DAMASCUS: Fighters affiliated with Syria’s new Islamist leaders have carried out 35 summary executions over 72 hours, mostly of Assad-era officers, a war monitor said Sunday.
The authorities, installed by the rebel forces that toppled longtime president Bashar Assad last month, said they had carried out multiple arrests in the western Homs area over unspecified “violations.”
Official news agency SANA said the authorities on Friday accused members of a “criminal group” who used a security sweep to commit abuses against residents, “posing as members of the security services.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said that “these arrests follow grave violations and summary executions that had cost the lives of 35 people over the past 72 hours.”
It also said that “members of religious minorities” had suffered “humiliations.”
Most of those executed are former officers in the toppled Assad government who had presented themselves in centers set up by the new authorities, according to the Britain-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
“Dozens of members of local armed groups under the control of the new Sunni Islamist coalition in power who participated in the security operations” in the Homs area “have been arrested,” the Observatory said.
It added that these groups “carried out reprisals and settled old scores with members of the Alawite minority to which Bashar Assad belongs, taking advantage of the state of chaos, the proliferations of arms and their ties to the new authorities.”
The Observatory listed “mass arbitrary arrests, atrocious abuse, attacks against religious symbols, mutilations of corpses, summary and brutal executions targeting civilians,” which it said showed “an unprecedented level of cruelty and violence.”
Civil Peace Group, a civil society organization, said in a statement that there had been civilian victims in multiple villages in the Homs area during the security sweep.
The group “condemned the unjustified violations” including the killing of unarmed men.
Since seizing power, the new authorities have sought to reassure religious and ethnic minorities in Syria that their rights would be upheld.
Members of Assad’s Alawite minority have expressed fear of retaliation over abuses during his clan’s decades in power.
White House says ceasefire agreement between Lebanon, Israel to continue until Feb 18
WASHINGTON: The White House said in a statement on Sunday that the arrangement between Lebanon and Israel would continue to be in effect until Feb 18, after Israel said on Friday it would keep troops in the south beyond the Sunday deadline set out in a US-brokered ceasefire that halted last year’s war with Hezbollah.
The White House also said the governments of Lebanon, Israel and the United States would begin negotiations for “the return of Lebanese prisoners captured after October 7, 2023.” (Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Humeyra Pamuk; editing by Diane Craft)
Arab League says Palestinian displacement would be ‘ethnic cleansing’
- Egypt earlier expressed objection to Trump's suggestion to “clean out” the Gaza Strip and move its population to Egypt and Jordan
- Egyptian President El-Sisi has repeatedly warned that any planned displacement would threaten Egypt’s national security
CAIRO: The Arab League on Sunday warned against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land,” after US President Donald Trump suggested a plan to “clean out” the Gaza Strip and move its population to Egypt and Jordan.
“The forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing,” the regional bloc’s general secretariat said in a statement.
“Attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land, whether by displacement, annexation or settlement expansion, have been proven to fail in the past,” the statement added.
Earlier Sunday, Egypt vehemently expressed its objection to Trump's suggestion.
Cairo’s foreign ministry in a statement expressed Egypt’s “continued support for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people on their land.”
It “rejected any infringement on those inalienable rights, whether by settlement or annexation of land, or by the depopulation of that land of its people through displacement, encouraged transfer or the uprooting of Palestinians from their land, whether temporarily or long-term.”
After 15 months of war, Trump said Gaza had become a “demolition site” and he would “like Egypt to take people, and I’d like Jordan to take people.”
Moving Gaza’s inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term,” he said.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023 both countries have warned of plans to displace Palestinians from Gaza into neighboring Egypt and from the West Bank into Jordan.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, with whom Trump said he would speak on Sunday, has repeatedly warned that said displacement would aim to “eradicate the cause for Palestinian statehood.”
El-Sisi has described the prospect as a “red line” that would threaten Egypt’s national security.
The Egyptian foreign ministry on Sunday urged the implementation of the “two-state solution,” which Cairo has said would become impossible if Palestinians were removed from their territories.
Canadian veteran released in Afghanistan after Qatari mediation, official says
- David Lavery is now in the Qatari capital, Doha, where he has undergone a medical assessment
DOHA: Canadian veteran David Lavery has been freed following his arrest in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on Nov. 11 after mediation by Qatar, an official with knowledge of the release said on Sunday.
The circumstances surrounding Lavery’s arrest remain unclear. The Veterans Transition Network, where Lavery worked, said last year that he had frequently traveled to Afghanistan to carry out humanitarian work.
“Mr. Lavery’s release was secured following a request from the Canadian government to Qatar, asking for their support given their past experience as mediators in Afghanistan,” the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Lavery is now in the Qatari capital, Doha, where he has undergone a medical assessment, the official said.
What to know about Israel’s ban on UN agency for Palestinians
- Replacing UNRWA, therefore, is seen as impossible, even though beneficiaries and NGOs have been searching for alternatives for weeks
JERUSALEM: As a law banning the UN agency for Palestinian refugees from operating on Israeli territory is set to take effect, the future of the vital services it offers is shrouded in uncertainty.
Israeli politicians have accused UNRWA of being linked to Palestinian militants, and in October voted to ban it. The order will come into force at the end of January.
Lawmakers have celebrated the legislation as a political victory, but it has raised questions about what would replace the work of the crucial aid agency.
UNRWA operates across the Middle East, particularly in Palestinian refugee camps.
The areas that would likely be affected by the Israeli ban are the Palestinian territories — the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
UNRWA provides education, sanitation and health services, and has been the main agency coordinating aid during the Gaza war.
The legislation bans Israeli officials from working with UNRWA and outlaws its activities “on Israeli territory,” which under Israeli law would include east Jerusalem, occupied and annexed by Israel in 1967.
UNRWA has a large compound in east Jerusalem and works in the Shuafat refugee camp there.
According to Jonathan Fowler, a spokesman for the agency, 750 children attend UNRWA schools in east Jerusalem, while it conducts 8,000 medical consultations each year for patients who have no access to other options.
In the Gaza Strip, devastated by more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas, the agency employs 13,000 people and coordinates the humanitarian response for other organizations, which means it is regularly in contact with the Israeli authorities.
In the West Bank, UNRWA provides services for hundreds of thousands of people living in refugee camps.
To operate in the territory, the agency must coordinate with an Israeli defense ministry agency.
Under the Israeli law, UNRWA must cease its operations in east Jerusalem and vacate all its buildings by January 30, Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon wrote in a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday.
Apart from that letter, “no one knows what is going to happen,” said Fowler.
“We will continue everything we can while awaiting further details. We are not giving up.”
Emphasising the uncertainty that surrounds the agency, Fowler said it wasn’t clear whether UNRWA staff passing through Israeli checkpoints across the West Bank could “be considered contact with the Israeli authorities” and therefore banned.
He said that during Israeli military raids, UNRWA staff have maintained contact with Israeli officials to protect the people it serves, especially children in refugee camps.
“If we lose that contact, that would be a big problem,” he said. “It is very dangerous.”
In the Gaza Strip, UNRWA “provides logistical support” for other UN agencies and remains “the backbone of UN operations on the ground,” said Muhannad Hadi, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the Middle East, recently returned from Gaza.
Replacing UNRWA, therefore, is seen as impossible, even though beneficiaries and NGOs have been searching for alternatives for weeks.
Human rights group Adalah petitioned the Israeli supreme court on January 15, in the name of 10 Palestinian refugees, arguing that the legislation banning UNRWA “violates fundamental human rights and Israel’s obligations under international law.”
Fowler said that “under international law, it is incumbent on an occupying power to ensure the well-being... of an occupied population.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent on Thursday said it “absolutely” rejected the idea of replacing UNRWA “despite ongoing attempts by various parties” to convince it to take on the UN agency’s work or receive funds that currently go to the agency.
It said “the most recent of these attempts was by the Israeli health ministry which sought to hand over UNRWA’s Bab Al-Zawiya clinic in Jerusalem to the (Red Crescent) in exchange for financial support — a proposal that the Society categorically rejected.”
Some have suggested that UNRWA’s mission be taken over by foreign governments or other UN agencies.
Some UN staff, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said that their organizations lacked both the human and material resources to replace UNRWA.
Other UN agencies “don’t have the capacity, on the ground, to do the distribution like we do,” said Fowler.
COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry agency overseeing civilian affairs in Palestinian territories, has repeatedly said that it works with other organizations, UN agencies and NGOs to organize the humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip.