VOA标准英语2014--Egypt's Sissi Appears Virtually Unchallenged in Presidency Bid

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Egypt's Sissi Appears Virtually Unchallenged in Presidency¹ Bid

CAIRO — Egyptian military chief Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has resigned from the military and announced he will run for president. With few viable² opponents to challenge the field marshal, his official status as the nation's leader seems all but assured.

Field Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sissi appears poised³ to become Egypt's next president, following in the steps of Mohamed Morsi, the man he helped overthrow⁴.

Sissi has the explicit⁵ backing of Egypt's all-powerful military. Commanders say “the people” have ordered him to run. And, indeed, the throngs⁶ that come out on the streets to support him insist he is the country's sole savior.  

Sissi campaigner and childhood friend Aly Hossan said, “There's no substitute ... at this moment. Anyone else would take us back to square one.”

That's exactly where his critics say Sissi will take them, however, returning the country to the kind of leadership Egyptians overthrew⁷ in 2011.

Activist⁸ and revolutionary socialist⁹ Tarek Shalaby said, “This goes against all that we stood for: against the militarization of the state, against having a brutal¹⁰ dictator from the army rule with an iron fist.”

Yet, when Morsi chose him to be his defense¹¹ minister and chief of the armed forces in 2012, many saw Sissi as representing a break from the older generation of the military officers who had worked so closely with the old regime. His reputation as a devout¹² Muslim made his loyalties¹³ unclear.

The next year, any doubt vanished. Mass protests broke out against Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected president who in his one year in office alienated¹⁴ wide swathes of the populace with actions perceived as autocratic and too focused on Islamist policies.

Sissi moved swiftly, first against Morsi, then against Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood¹⁵ base.

While the crackdown further fueled Sissi's support base, some who initially¹⁶ supported Morsi's ouster were appalled¹⁷. Critics, including secular¹⁸ activists¹⁹ and academics, found themselves facing arrest. Some went into exile abroad.

Any but overtly²⁰ pro-government journalists became suspect, in particular those from Al-Jazeera. Twenty people with the Qatar-based network have been charged with links to terrorism and damaging the country's international reputation - a move rights advocates say has itself damaged the country's reputation.

But with Al Jazeera, and Qatar, popularly seen as supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, the government's actions also have added to Sissi's appeal. So, too, has the growing threat of a jihadist insurgency²¹, which has claimed responsibility for deadly bombings in Cairo and elsewhere.

Some of his supporters compare Sissi to his childhood hero, President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who helped overthrow Egypt's monarchy²². Some find him, like Nasser, charming.

Constitutional lawyer and scholar Ahmed Kamal Abu el Magd said, “He is a nice guy. He is tender and he is compassionate²³ and he has a good sense of humor. And he has experience with the secret agents of the country. But how this is going to work out, I don't know.”

There also is another risk. Egyptian discontent is broad, fueled by chronic²⁴ poverty, unemployment and a breakdown²⁵ of social services. Even a massive infusion²⁶ of Gulf²⁷ Arab money after Morsi's fall has done little to improve daily life.

Cairo resident Mamoud al-Bottar said people love Sissi now, but he predicted that after six months of a Sissi presidency, “they will curse him,” adding, “because we are in a state that has fallen apart.”

Reviving Egypt's familiar dynamic of repression²⁸ in the name of security has its own perils²⁹. Failing to address the basic concerns of protest-ready Egyptians may prove even riskier³⁰.