On September 20 and September 21, there have been hundreds of protesters (if not thousands) on the streets of Cairo, Alexandaria, Suez and El-Mahalla El Kubra . They were protesting El-Sisi government due to;
- Economic grievances; IMF Loan might help state financing but people purchasing power has been negatively affected.
- Anti-government sentimental; It is the biggest protest since 2016 when the two islands were transferred to Saudi Arabia; namely Tiran and Sanafir. However, the protesters already received the support even inside the Parliament. It shall be remembered that Parliament approved a law condemning the island transfer. And now protesters focus on President El-Sisi.
- Mohammed Ali; He is a exiled Egyptian businessman living in Spain. He has started to publish videos on internet criticizing El-Sisi and his government on issues how they are abusing the resource of country, using the country finance for their own benefit and luxury lives of politicians.
- The protestors have different motives – some protests economy, some the human rights at the country and some are political protests. The arrest of anti-Muslim Brotherhood Leaders, human right activists and journalist have one thing in common, President El-Sisi wants to be the only figure in the country.
The Egyptian security force can choose to use more forces to control the protests but in case it will not be successful, it may go up in numbers and thousands can easily reach to hundreds of thousand especially military using violence. Therefore, it is important to watch if the protests will intensify. If so, government could use economic concession to soften the tone of protesters.
However, as Geopolitic Compass, we do not foresee that it will entirely settle down. Ultimately, El-Sisi and its government wrong administration including corruption, anti-human rights and bad economy would come to a stage where it would be unbearable for people to stand. At that point, it would be late for El-Sisi.
