Some former El-Sisi allies turn critics as Egypt polls near

CAIRO: Some of the people who helped propel Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to power are calling for his replacement in an election next year.
Although the former military commander has yet to declare he will run in the June election, only two people have aired the idea of challenging him and even they say El-Sisi is likely to win.
But the criticism in recent months from several of El-Sisi’s staunchest former allies of his handling of the economy, security and a territorial dispute is striking in a country where fear of turmoil is another factor stifling dissent.
“He must go,” Hazim Abdelazim, a leading figure in Sissi’s official 2014 presidential campaign, told Reuters.
The presidency did not respond to a request for comment. El-Sisi’s allies have dismissed accusations of rights abuses, saying his measures are needed for security in the face of an insurgency. El-Sisi says his government is working to put the economy back on track.
Closer to home, the population is struggling with rampant inflation and persistent and deadly terror attacks which the government says justifies its jailing of political opponents and activists and closing of critical media.
In 2014, a year after he seized power during mass protests against Egypt’s first freely-elected President Mohammed Mursi, El-Sisi won an election by a landslide, promising economic growth, stability and a crackdown on militants.
Under El-Sisi’s presidency, thousands of dissidents have been jailed, the government has shut down independent media and heavily restricted the conducting of polls.
During the Muslim Brotherhood’s year in power following Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring uprising, Mursi’s government faced protests amid power cuts, fuel shortages and resistance from state institutions.
When El-Sisi, who is now 62, took office in 2013, a broad cross-section of the public admired the general in dark sunglasses with his eloquent speeches and promises of stability. Shops sold out of cakes decorated with his face.
Now, the challenges are mounting. Egypt is fighting a Daesh insurgency in North Sinai that gained pace in 2013, killing hundreds of security forces. The group has turned its guns on Christians in the mainland, who were of the most vocal supporters of El-Sisi, killing around 100 since December.