Egyptians expect intense summer heat in June and July but this year also had to endure daily three-hour power cuts. Fridges, air-conditioners, water pumping, lighting and electrical equipment stopped as indoor temperatures rose.
People were advised to check the time before getting into a lift. At least four have died this year after getting stuck. Babies were born in hospitals by mobile phone torch lights. Loss of street lighting made it less safe for women. In the south, where temperatures hit 50oC in the shade, dozens were reported to have died from the heat.
The electricity shortage is partly the result of inadequate generation capacity. Wind and solar energy contributed less than 6% of the total in 2023, despite the sun shining almost every day.
The IDF attacks on Gaza since October 7th has worsened Egypt’s energy crisis. Gas piped to Egypt from Israel’s Tamar off-shore gas field is used for power generation, but 90% is also exported as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) earning vital foreign currency. On October 9th the Israeli government shut down production for several weeks. Blackouts lengthened from one to two hours a day and LNG had to be imported. Although gas supplies to Egypt resumed in November, power cuts continued.
The debt crisis worsened after Houthi attacks on shipping, which then avoided the Suez Canal. Revenue fell 50% in the first quarter of 2024. Tourism also fell 25%, especially to the Red Sea resorts.
Despite government attempts to maintain the pound at around 30 to the dollar, by January it was trading at 70 to the dollar on the black market. The official annual consumer price index rose 36% in February, which underestimates the true rise in the cost-of-living.
Frequent power cuts were one factor in the massive protest against former Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. In the absence of the working class organising to take power at that time, Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi led a military takeover, filling the vacuum. He became president himself in 2014.
Stabilising electricity supplies helped Sisi’s government maintain some support, but this is now weakening as the lights go out again. Sharply rising prices and plummeting living standards are also undermining his support.
Sisi reshuffled the cabinet on July 3rd, appointing a new finance minister, Ahmed Kouchouk, a former World Bank economist. He said “Egypt was committed to fiscal discipline and bringing down debt, as well as pursuing structural reform to allow for private sector growth.” A new investment minister, Hassan El Khatib, has held roles at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It’s clear this government is prioritising it’s relations with international finance.
A 90-year old four-storey building in Assiut suddenly collapsed, killing 14 people including children on 1st July, probably due to leaking sewage weakening the foundations. This was another reminder that life for workers and the poor has not really changed. Similar dreadful incidents regularly occurred under former president Hosni Mubarak.
Gaza conflict
The Gaza conflict has sharply heightened these contradictions. In the past, Sisi’s government strongly opposed Hamas, which originated from the Muslim Brotherhood. Together with the Israeli government, strict Egyptian control of the border and Rafah crossing prevented Palestinians and goods moving freely.
One of the regime’s favoured capitalists, Ibrahim al-Organi, controls a huge construction-to-healthcare business. For years, anyone wanting to get goods into Gaza through the Egyptian border has had to work with his companies. His connections to senior military and security officers have given him special influence in Sinai and Gaza. Throughout the Egyptian economy, big business has to co-ordinate and co-operate with the military tops, causing friction with those capitalists and international corporations outside this ‘magic circle’.
There has been sporadic conflict for years in Sinai between Islamist factions affiliated to ISIS (but opposed to Hamas) and the Egyptian state. Sisi’s regime fears further destabilisation as a result of the massacres in Gaza, which is one reason behind its refusal to open the border to allow Palestinians to escape the siege.
The regime also fears an influx of refugees would lead to rocket attacks launched on Israel from Egyptian soil, retaliatory air strikes and the gas pipeline shutting again.
Solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians is very strong among Egypt’s population, but the regime has restricted protests against the slaughter and siege. Six activists in Alexandria were arrested for raising a pro-Palestinian banner. They were detained for 15 days, charged with joining a terrorist group, spreading false news and statements, and participating in a gathering.
Sisi fears opposition to Israeli bombing and occupation could quickly spill over into opposition to falling living standards, power cuts and the regime’s co-operation with the Israeli state, as happened last October.
This anxiety is also shared by governments and capitalists outside Egypt. The ruling classes of the Middle East, the Gulf states and the Maghreb fearfully remember the 2011 mass protests that grew until Ben Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak, Gadaffi in Libya and Saleh in Yemen were ousted. Had there been revolutionary parties, rooted in the working class with socialist programmes, capitalism could have been overthrown and socialist revolution could have spread across the Middle East, North Africa and beyond.
The imperialist backers of Middle Eastern rulers share the same nightmare and have softened the demands they had previously placed on Sisi’s regime. The EU Commission agreed a loan to Egypt without conditions, “linked to the fear of instability” as a European diplomat explained. Likewise, the US government recognised Egypt’s “changed circumstances and environment” and supported an IMF loan with less strings than had previously been attached.
The UAE has agreed a massive $35billion development scheme, but not a loan. New resorts, hotels, marinas, housing and infrastructure will be built at Ras el-Hekma, a prime site on the Mediterranean coast. At 170 sq km, the area is five times bigger than Egypt’s previous largest urban land sale. UAE’s sovereign wealth fund will control the lion’s share.
Egypt’s sick economy means it is declining as the region’s dominant power. Nonetheless, with its large working class and tradition of struggle it still remains key to the class war between the working class, urban poor and poor peasants against capitalism and landlordism across the Middle East.
Although very few strikes have been reported in recent months, like the building in Assiut with weakening foundations, the regime’s instability can suddenly reach a tipping point. Half of Egypt’s population is under 25 years old, so have little or no memory of the euphoria that followed Mubarak’s ousting, or the demoralisation that followed the experience of the Morsi and Sisi regimes.
New movements of workers and youth will erupt. Studying the lessons of 2011 and starting to build the foundations of a future revolutionary party with a socialist programme is necessary. Only the working class can lead a way out of capitalism’s continuing hardship, environmental horrors and terrible wars and build a society with democratic rights for all, where resources are democratically planned to meet need.
