Egypt Blackouts Become Symbol of Malaise A Decade After Sisi’s Rise

Date: 16 August 2023 - 21:13

News ID: ۱۱۸۳۳۰

CAIRO (Reuters) – For Egyptians grown used to a decade of reliable power supplies and boasts of vast investments in generation, a wave of rolling blackouts came as a shock - shaking faith in President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s record months before an election.
Along with record inflation and a sharp weakening of the currency, the outages have become a potent symptom of the worst economic crisis to hit Egypt since Sisi took power in 2014 on promises of stability and development.
A former army chief who has overseen a far-reaching crackdown on political dissent, Sisi is widely expected to secure a third term in elections due by early 2024, with the military and other security services in support.
But the country’s economic troubles have stirred grumbling among many Egyptians, who are seeing their living standards slide even as the state has spent heavily on mega projects.
“We forgot what a power cut was,” said Karim Mahrous, a resident of al-Asmarat, a Cairo neighborhood of social housing developed under Sisi where people said the power was being cut for an hour at a time.
“When electricity goes off once or twice a day and other places do not even have power cuts that last a quarter of an hour, this is called injustice.”
Power cuts have not been a significant problem since the turmoil that followed the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt’s 2011 uprising.
At that time, frequent outages helped turn opinion against Egypt’s leader, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi, before Sisi led his ouster in July 2013.
Sisi’s critics see echoes of that time in the power cuts that began in July and have been implemented according to a published schedule since the start of August. Residents say they have hit some areas harder than others, fuelling a sense of inequality.