Egypt in the elections

The Egyptian presidential elections, which take place during these days, have an already defined outcome. The alternatives for the approximately sixty million voters are not many and the only candidacy, in addition to the outgoing president Al Sisi, who will emerge victorious from the polls, is a politician who is part of a party that has always provided all its support to the government in charge. An election, therefore, that has as its value only the accomplishment of a legal duty, without effective competition, because it takes place within the same political field. The Muslim Brotherhood, a political formation that had won the last elections where there had been a real contradictory, had been put out of action, but that, after the inauguration of power, had abused their majority position, all the other formations or competitors able to collect a significant number of consents were forced out of the country's active political life. The methods are well known: the use of force has been preponderant in Egyptian political dialectics, through torture, the death penalty and in general terror and repression as instruments of one-way politics. If, at the beginning, this methodology was used against religious-political opponents, then the Egyptian dictatorship also expanded its action against more moderate or secular parties and movements, which demanded only a greater rate of democracy in the country. . This rift in Egyptian society may be the reason for the greater fear of the winner already announced: abstention. In fact, a low turnout at the polls could lead to a lower legitimacy of the investiture of Al Sisi and could, consequently, aggravate the problems at the international level; the Egyptian government has been subjected to deeply negative judgments, precisely because of the violence of the repressions to which the opponents were subjected, however, no practical measure, such as sanctions, has ever been taken against Cairo. The Egyptian government plays an essential role for the West as a function of anti-Islamic fundamentalism, a role also greatly appreciated by a large part of the country's society, which prefers a military dictatorship to a religious dictatorship, as Egypt had become with the Brothers Muslims to the government. In this part, more or less favorable to the regime, the minority of Christians is included, which, however, reach about fifteen percent of the total population; with Al Sisi in the government the Christians felt more protected and the forecasts are that they will vote almost entirely in their favor. The real danger of these elections are the possible attacks, which would draw attention to Egypt and could compromise the control of the country of the president in office. For this reason, even more stringent control measures have been implemented on the country, even if the area considered most dangerous is always that of Sinai. In this territory the presence of different components of Islamic terrorism, welded with the most extreme parts of the Palestinian movements, have forced the Egyptian armed forces to a constant and massive action, which is not yet clear what results it has given. The Egyptian military is supported by the US and Israeli allies in the fight against the adverse forces that find refuge in the Sinai desert and this alliance is the best international justification for Al Sisi's stay in the country's government, precisely in order to avoid a drift to Egypt. Islamic fundamentalist. As for the internal situation, the economy is in a very difficult situation and the country survives thanks to foreign contributions, which are granted just keep a control on now unlikely returns of Islamic fundamentalism. The Egyptian population seems to accept the General's government, also due to the lack of valid alternatives due to both the repression and the exhaustion of consensus for the other movements that did not know or wanted to integrate with the Al Sisi regime. What appears is a sort of resignation that turns out to be the determined element of this election.