CAIRO // Abdel Fattah El Sisi has triumphantly returned home after his first turn on the world stage as Egypt’s president.
Mr El Sisi, sworn in just two months ago, made his first speech to world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly, and met Barack Obama and dozens of businessmen, foreign dignitaries and media heavyweights.
The warm welcome he received in New York may have sealed Mr El Sisi’s legitimacy on the international stage.
However, he will have little time to reflect on the success of the five-day trip. Mr El Sisi is facing a spectacular array of problems at home that require immediate attention.
He returned home on Friday to find the country captivated by an image of a man’s body dangling from a giant billboard on the Cairo-Ismailia motorway after he hung himself.
The photo went viral on social media, and while there was nothing political about the man’s death, Farag Rizk, 48, was said by police to have been going through a financial crisis.
It is difficult, if not outright impossible, to gauge the symbolic significance of the man’s death, especially when he left no note.
But it is beyond doubt that he wanted to send a message, or at least make a very public statement.
Suicide is not widespread in Egypt – it is rejected by Muslims as an act of defiance against God’s will – but when it happens, it is usually quiet and covered up by relatives.
However, any attempt to associate Rizk’s death with, for example, the self immolation of a fruit vendor in Tunisia in late 2010 that sparked the Arab Spring uprisings, will certainly be tenuous because the incident has so far failed to spark protests.
But, again, the man’s suicide may well be symptomatic of a society stretched to the limit by economic hardships.
Mr El Sisi has repeatedly declared the economy his top priority, a well-received statement by a nation that has endured one economic crisis after another for decades.
None of these, however, has been as acute as the one gripping the country since the removal more than three years ago of long-time autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
The depth of the crisis is matched only by the popular expectations put on Mr El Sisi’s shoulders.
Unemployment is officially about 13 per cent but is believed to be considerably higher. Prices of basic goods are constantly rising and tourism, the economy’s lifeline, continues to slump, although there are signs of a slow recovery.
Power outages are frequent although there have been fewer recently after a summer that saw daily outages, some lasting hours, and one massive blackout last month in Cairo that brought the city of 18 million to a standstill.
A glimmer of hope, however, recently emerged when the finance minister, Hany Kadry Dimian, predicted growth rates of up to 6 per cent within three years, signalling a major turnaround.
“Five to six per cent in two to three years is very doable,” he said.
An overwhelming vote of confidence was on display when Egyptians bought in astonishing speed national bonds with a five-year maturity and a whooping 12 per cent interest rate to finance a major expansion project in the Suez Canal area.
The US$8.5-billion (Dh31.2bn) project, which includes six tunnels beneath the canal and a rail line, could boost annual revenues from the Suez Canal to $13bn, according to government projections.
But more importantly, the record sale of the bonds showed that public confidence in Mr El Sisi’s leadership was still high.
Besides the economy, Mr El Sisi is dealing with criticism from groups at home and abroad for what they perceive as human-rights violations in the country – from restrictions on free speech to the jailing of thousands and abusive police tactics.
He has defended the mass arrests, saying it was needed in the face of the threats facing Egypt – whether from Libya where militant groups control of large areas or from home-grown radicals waging a campaign of violence that began in Sinai but has more recently spread to much of the rest of the country.
A bomb attack in the centre of Cairo last week killed two senior police officers and wounded several more, underling the reach of the militants in the heavily policed city.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
