Regional developments and the street both draw a better future for Egypt's revolution

The Middle East-North Africa region is undergoing incredible political and strategic changes which have, undoubtedly, had an impact on the Egyptian revolution. Coupled with the steadfastness of the people in Egypt, these changes will decide the revolution’s future.

In an attempt to understand the present and the future, we must look to the recent past. In the aftermath of the military coup, those regional states which funded the overthrow of the democratically-elected president dedicated their vast resources to backing Al-Sisi in the belief that he would suppress the revolution quickly and easily; they sought to create favourable conditions in politics, economics and the media within which the coup regime could flourish. They thought that the revolution was simply an act of the Muslim Brotherhood, so they placed the movement at the top of their list of enemies to destroy.

Politically, the coup-sponsoring states, foremost among them Saudi Arabia under the late King Abdullah, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain, provided huge support for Al-Sisi within international circles. The African Union, for example, came under political pressure from these countries to re-admit Egypt to its membership.

These states, especially the UAE, placed considerable pressure on Britain to investigate the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood with the aim of concluding that the movement is a terrorist organisation. Attempts to prosecute Al-Sisi’s government for crimes against humanity were blocked. When representatives of the revolution went abroad, their contemporaries from the Gulf were close behind to counter the often positive impressions left by the Egyptians on local MPs, officials and NGOs.

Despite all of this support, Al-Sisi’s regime has failed to achieve stability; it has been unable to finish off – at the direction of its paymasters in the Gulf and elsewhere – the opposing national forces.

It should be said that the battle outside Egypt is a reflection of what went on inside the country. Whenever the revolution gathers momentum and strength the external coup-supporters get weaker in terms of their argument for supporting Al-Sisi. It has now become obvious that they do not have the patience that the revolution possesses. Whereas the soft diplomacy in support of the revolution continues to be effective internationally, the pretext of the states backing the coup has become ludicrous and repetitive. Thus, attempts to break the resolve of the revolution politically will fail because it is stronger by virtue of its steadfastness and action on the ground.

The most important of the regional changes to impact on Egypt is by far the power shift in Saudi Arabia following the death of King Abdullah. It was obvious from day one of King Salman’s reign that a major change was taking place in the way that key issues were being dealt with. Whereas previously the main actor was Khalid Al-Tuwaijri, regarded as the UAE’s man in the kingdom, who influenced policies to a great extent, I believe that the new government has different priorities. The war against the Muslim Brotherhood will ease; instead the focus will be on stabilising the kingdom itself along with the situation in Yemen, the Iranian threat and ISIS. This was apparent in the agenda for the meeting between King Salman and Turkey’s President Erdogan; Egypt was not the number one item of mutual interest.

The declared Saudi policy is based on stability in Egypt being of vital importance. The kingdom believes that this will not be possible without the army. Hence, the Saudis stressed on more than one occasion that they do not support Al-Sisi as a person, but that they help the army in order to maintain stability in the region. It seems that this policy is being revised by the new leadership in Riyadh in light of the failure of Al-Sisi’s regime and the army leadership to create that stability and after it has been shown that the regime itself is the cause of the chaos. While this strategic shift makes it possible to say that Saudi Arabia will not be the main supporter of the Sisi regime, at the same time it will not support the revolution.

Despite the Saudi anxiety about the revolution, the new stance is not bad. The revolution has always maintained that it does not seek to export itself because every country has its own peculiar set of circumstances. In any case, political positions tend to change when circumstances change. We are now seeing Saudi communicating with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islah Party in Yemen driven by mutual interests and the need to stand up to a mutual threat.

Experience has proven that Al-Sisi can neither be relied on nor trusted as an ally by Saudi Arabia when dealing with major issues in the region. This was evident in Egypt’s hesitation over the Yemeni crisis and Cairo’s communication with parties in the conflict working against Saudi Arabia, as well as its approach to the situation in Syria, which is radically different to that of Riyadh.

As far as we are concerned, our strategy in this regard is crystal clear. It is based on the principle of not compromising any of the fundamentals of our revolution. We shall reply to any positive Saudi stances toward our revolution with positive responses.

With regards to regional economic support for the coup, the amount spent by the Gulf States exceeds what has ever been spent on any state within such a short period. Since mid-2013, Cairo has received in excess of $50 billion, which should have been more than enough to effect a qualitative change in the Egyptian economy. However, those who received the money are nothing less than bandits whose failures are plain to see. Al-Sisi has seized most of this financial aid; less than 10 per cent has ended up in the Central Bank, although none has been directed towards community projects such as health and education which might ease Egypt’s chronic unemployment.

Coup-run Egypt has made no progress in any of the economic indices of inflation, the budget deficit or balance of trade. Indeed, international and local reports (such as the Report of Mobilisation and Statistics) show clearly the decline in all of these areas.

The new geo-political changes, whether international or regional, will not enable the Gulf countries to support the coup with similar huge amounts of aid in the future. Oil prices have been almost halved and the region is at the threshold of major conflicts; nobody knows how they will impact on the economies of the coup-supporting states.

Al-Sisi’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia is a clear example of this change. During his brief meeting with the government, which lasted less than an hour, he asked the kingdom pay for the weapons that Russia was going to export to Egypt; Saudi funding had been agreed previously. However, the new administration’s response was that it is under no obligation to fund any deal that was not signed by the late King Abdullah.

Apart from providing Al-Sisi with some political clout, the recent economic conference in Egypt failed in its objectives. The regime which squandered $50 billion of aid without any benefits for the people received pledges at the conference totalling $3 billion to be deposited in the Central Bank. The rest was nothing but promises and good intentions upon which no economy can be built, especially when this economy is suffering from total collapse, with local debt exceeding 2 trillion Egyptian pounds and foreign debt more than $46 billion. Thousands of factories and workshops have closed down over the past 18 months, with the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The revolutionary dynamic, ongoing since the coup, is exposing the inability of the regime in Cairo to make any progress domestically and its failure to establish its credentials abroad. There has been a total failure to make use of the unprecedented level of economic aid. The revolution has, therefore, succeeded in proving that a corrupt and criminal coup regime such as that of Al-Sisi’s can never advance economically no matter how much international and regional aid is poured into its coffers.

The coup media in Egypt and the Gulf has made huge efforts to describe revolutionary groups as “terrorists”, distorting the revolution’s peaceful dynamic in the process. The idea was to bestow legitimacy on a failing coup regime. TV channels were blind to the institutional and methodical murder of peaceful protesters. Media lies have become boringly repetitive as they seek to convince the people of Egypt that their lives are improving when every citizen is experiencing the opposite. The lies are now transparent and the people can see through them.

In contrast, pro-revolution media have caused the coup regime a lot of anxiety and disrupted any sense of stability. In part this has been achieved by publicising leaks from the very top of the regime’s edifice, which have demonstrated how craven and despicable the coup leader really is. He is the same bandit who has tried to bring our people to their knees and humiliate them.

In conclusion, those who supported the coup have found nothing in Al-Sisi but failure after failure in all of the important areas of government. He has been unable to fulfil any of his promises. The coup-supporting states now find themselves facing bad scenarios in the shadow of Egypt’s failures. Perhaps some will soon seek a way out of their predicament. When they do, they will see that the revolution has learned from yesterday’s mistakes and that Al-Sisi’s regime will fall; it is inevitable.

Translated from Arabi21, 3 April, 2015

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.